The Intersection of Gender, Culture and Education: Jamaica: The Next 50 Years!

School leadership continues to be an issue of great concern for all stakeholders in the Jamaican education system. Without an educated workforce the society will not have sustainable development and will continue to have anemic economic growth. The National Education Inspectorate (NEI) report highlights that in 41 per cent of high schools in Jamaica, leadership is unsatisfactory, and in 47 per cent of cases, leadership is just achieving the minimum set targets. Disturbingly, 1 per cent of high schools have exceptional leadership. It is clear that the society has a culture of weak school leadership. It is also obvious that there needs to be a public-private partnership to reverse this issue of ineffective school leadership. Jamaica National Building Society, through their JN Foundation recently organized a School Leadership Summit, which was held on July 25 & 26. Jamaica National is not new regarding their involvement and scaffolding of matters concerning education. Jamaica Nationa

Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call for self-importance. J. Donald Walters Jamaica’s education system is faced with many challenges; however, the most pressing is the weak leadership in many of our schools which for some reason we have failed to address, sadly to the detriment of our students. The weak leadership school culture has not gone unnoticed as the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) has documented that only 1 per cent of high schools fall into the category of exceptional leadership. This is most disturbing and requires a call to action to reverse this negative trend. The NEI Report of 2015 highlighted that more than 40 per cent of high schools, or 4 out of every 10 have unsatisfactory leadership and require immediate support. Despite these alarming findings, it is clear that this ‘immediate support’ is not quite forthcoming and as a result our students continue to suffer under an education system which does not adequately addresses the diversity

Jamaica tends to look at her powerful North America neighbor the United States of America for guidance and ideas regarding policies from time to time. It is well established that the USA has a culture of overtesting their students and Education Minister Ruel Reid’s plan to introduce a new diagnostic test for grade nine students could be seen as moving Jamaica towards a culture of overtesting.   The pending introduction of a National Grade Nine Diagnostic Test should begin in the academic year 2019/2020. It is noteworthy that some grade nine students already do a diagnostic test in the Grade Nine Achievement Test (GNAT) which is used to transfer students from all age and junior high schools to the 10th grade in secondary schools. Under the National Grade Nine Diagnostic Test proposal all students in grade nine irrespective of whether they attend all-age, junior high or secondary schools will be required to sit this examination which will be used to promote students to the tenth gra