The Ministry of Education and Technical and Vocational Training is addressing the teacher shortage issue. Minister Glenys Hanna Martin announced the hiring of over 300 teachers for the fall semester in her contribution to the 2024-2025 budget debate this month.
Director of Education, Dominique McCartney-Russell also recently gave an update on the ministry’s continued efforts to attract teachers. She said, “the main areas where we have shortages are Mathematics, Language Arts, Music and Performing Arts and PE. And so we’re really turning the wheel to recruit officers.”
According to McCartney there is a task force in place to review applications of prospective new hires and the ministry is also focused on teacher retention. “One of these that we’re seeking to do, as mandated but the morale committee, is to ensure that teachers get $250 to decorate their classrooms. We did that last year and we’re continuing that in support of, you know, we want the environment to be conducive and so this is just our way of helping teachers with that. We’re also giving teachers a voice. We have a focus group. We hear their concerns. We hear what they think about education,” she said.
The Ministry is also focused on offering professional development opportunities to teachers. McCartney-Russell said, “our desire, of course, is to ensure children get access to quality opportunities and we have to train teachers in order to do that.”
McCartney-Russell said that main goal is to provide quality education.
