JTA bemoans lack of investment in early childhood education

Western Bureau

Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Mark Malabver says the failure to adequately invest in early childhood education is now forcing the country to spend heavily to correct the social and academic problems it has caused, while negatively impacting national development.

“We are attempting to remediate on the back end what should have been properly developed on the front end,” said  Malabver, while addressing the seventh staging of the Early Childhood Professional Development Institute Professional Development Conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, on Monday.

He further argued that if the country continues to underfund one of the most critical stages of education, it will negatively impact literacy, behaviour, emotional development, and long-term learning outcomes.
“It costs far more to fix broken men and women than if you had intervened at the early childhood stage and done what we were always supposed to have been doing,” he said.
Speaking to the theme, ‘Making Rights Real: Reclaiming General Comment Seven’, Malabver said Jamaica has historically failed to prioritise early childhood education since Independence, even though the sector lays the foundation for a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development.

According to Malabver, many children are entering the formal education system already behind in literacy, numeracy, speech development, and emotional regulation, creating a cycle in which schools are forced to spend additional resources on remediation at the primary and secondary levels.
“Early childhood education can no longer sit at the margins of policy conversations. It must stand at the centre of that discourse, because when we strengthen the foundation, ultimately, we are strengthening not only the education system, but by extension the nation,” he said.
He also argued that countries serious about national transformation must place greater focus on early childhood development, noting that the benefits extend beyond education into areas such as workforce productivity, crime reduction, and economic growth.
Malabver also criticised the level of compensation to early childhood practitioners, insisting that educators responsible for shaping children during their most formative years remain among the least paid in the education system.
“In Jamaica, the salaries being paid to many early childhood practitioners in Jamaica remains wholly unacceptable,” he said.  “It is deeply troubling that the individuals entrusted with shaping the most formative years of human development are too often among the least compensated within the education system.”
Malabver also linked the issue to wider concerns about social justice and national priorities to the failure to properly compensate teachers.
“Our Jamaican teachers are among the lowest paid in the Caribbean and our politicians are among the highest paid in the Caribbean, and that is why, colleagues, it is a fight for social justice,” he said.
Malabver called for the Government to take a more dominant role in strengthening the sector through improved infrastructure, staffing support, nutrition programmes, psychosocial services, and equitable access to quality early childhood education across the island.
The Early Childhood Professional Development Institute, now in its seventh staging, brings together educators, administrators, and stakeholders in the early childhood sector for training, policy discussions, and professional development sessions aimed at improving standards across Jamaica’s early childhood education system. The event ends tomorrow at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James. 

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com