Early childhood emergency in Portland, St Thomas, St Mary

A staggering number of early childhood institutions (ECI) in eastern Jamaica have failed to meet the standards required to ensure the proper development of the nation’s children, the latest assessment by the Early Childhood Commission (ECC) has revealed.

Seventy-seven per cent of ECIs in the Ministry of Education’s Region Two, which comprises Portland, St Thomas, and St Mary, were graded below 50 per cent on the 12 industry benchmarks.

Experts have concluded that that finding is microcosmic of the country’s education sector and is directly linked to students’ performance at the primary and secondary levels.

The report, slated to be released later today, concluded that of the 280 ECIs operating across the three parishes, 216 fell below the halfway mark.

Only six per cent met all the standards, while 10 per cent received scores between 99 per cent and 50 per cent, with the majority ranking in the 50-69 percentile.

The remaining seven per cent of ECIs in the region were not assessed or found to be delinquent.

Checks by The Gleaner revealed that only six of the 280 institutions were government-run.

The results in the tri-parish arc are the gravest among the ministry’s seven regions, which, cumulatively, revealed that 44 per cent of the 2,373 ECIs were graded below 50 per cent in meeting the standards.

These cover developmental and educational programmes; interactions and relationships with children; the physical environment; indoor and outdoor equipment, furnishing and supplies; health; nutrition; safety; child rights, child protection and equality; interactions with parents and community members; administration; and finance.

“We should be concerned,” former permanent secretary at the education ministry, Elaine Foster-Allen, said of the finding.

“The implications are that there are issues within the institutions that may very well be impacting the development of the children ... . These standards form the basis or the context within which our children should be educated and we’ve agreed the falling below them, regardless of why, is an important signal,” she added in a Gleaner interview on Tuesday.

Of the 69 schools identified in Portland, 46, or 67 per cent, were graded below 50 per cent, while nine met all the standards.

For St Mary, seven of the 108 met the required standards and 83, or 77 per cent, fell below the halfway mark.

A total of 103 ECIs were listed in St Thomas, where three met all 12 standards and 87, or 84 per cent, scored below 50 per cent.

Education consultant and former principal Esther Tyson, who sat on the board of the ECC in 2020, argued that the finding is the clearest indication that the Government needs to channel its resources into the early childhood sector.

“Certainly for the next few years, until I believe we get to a stage where the system is equitable,” she said.

According to Tyson, “for a number of years” Region Two has consistently performed weaker than the other regions in terms of early childhood development.

“Therefore, there needs to be a targeted intervention in terms of the whole structure of the education system in that area. There needs to be a thorough assessment and evaluation, followed by a strategy to address what are the recognised problems that have been recognised,” she said.

Tyson suggested that a large number of ECIs, 85 per cent of which are privately owned, do not seriously examine the challenges they face and strategise to address them.

She noted that the rural schools, in particular, are often challenged in the areas of human, financial, physical, and learning resources.

Those challenges are reflective of the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s findings presented in its 2017 National Policy on Poverty and National Poverty Reduction Programme report which listed Portland and St Mary among the parishes with the highest prevalence of poverty based on available data compiled in 1992, 1998, 2002, 2008, and 2012.

Tyson said of concern is the lack of training, in most instances, of those educating the infants.

This, she said, is in, part, linked to a lack of finances, resulting in students being taught on verandas or in subpar spaces.

“The Government, if they are going to absorb the basic school system, they have to get those teachers trained,” she said, noting that far too many ECIs focus on teaching STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – without developing psychosocial skills.

She said if this is done, students will have strong cognitive development when they progress to primary school.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com