Recruitment of foreign teachers gets cautious thumbs up from local educators

Principals of some Corporate Area schools are voicing their support for the Ministry of Education and Youth’s plan to recruit foreign teachers to fill vacancies in the school system for the upcoming school year.

However, the school administrators say they are concerned about how quickly these educators will be able to adapt to the Jamaican classroom.

The education ministry announced that it will be sourcing teachers from Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines and India as part of its efforts to fill vacancies caused by resignations and teacher migration.

But while resigned that his school will “take any help we can get”, principal of the St Andrew Technical High School, Dr Worrel Hibbert, said he is cognisant of the issues this sort of targeted recruitment may pose.

“The challenge is we’d have to look at exactly what it is that those teachers are taking and that they have a clear understanding of what they are coming into, and finally whatever our expectations of them are, that they are able to deliver,” he told The Gleaner.

Hibbert also questioned why those particular countries were chosen for recruitment.

“We need to probably look at little bit more of progress of education in those countries, and how they measure development, how they measure success because the availability of teachers to come to a foreign country to teach doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the best ones to come to teach,” he said.

He shared that his staff complement has been reduced to 92 teachers, following four recent resignations. He is anxious that this number might increase in August as that is typically when more teachers leave the job.

Language barrier

Roncell Brooks, principal of the Norman Manley High School, said he is currently processing an application for one of the Nigerian recruits to fill one of seven vacancies at his school caused by resignations and teachers going on leave.

The principal is hopeful that this approach by the ministry will be advantageous for students.

“Schools will support it, if it’s to the benefit of the students, in terms of recruiting teachers from outside our context here, the only challenge that we’ll probably have … we might have a language barrier. But if they’re going to come with the content to support the students’ needs, then we support 100 per cent,” he said.

Though still with her full complement of 54 teachers at the Denham Town High School, principal Yvette Richards Thompson suggested the foreign recruits could be integrated into the classroom through a programme of scaffolding in the initial stages.

“You take a teacher who is trained or a teacher who can integrate them, you put those with them so they can work with them to get experience,” she said. “We had a Spanish teacher and she fit in well. She came from Cuba, and for her even though there was a cultural barrier, a language barrier, she managed to teach even children who weren’t reading Spanish, and they got it.”

The possible value of foreign educators to the Jamaican classroom is something that Papine High School principal Leighton Christie is willing to explore.

“If the expertise is not available locally, and we can get them from anywhere to fill the gap, I’m all for it. Just like how our teachers can leave and go overseas and fill the gap overseas … why not?” he said.

He noted that this would not be the first time teachers from overseas would be recruited to work in the Jamaican classroom, and believes the ministry’s process will be meticulous enough to get the best teachers who will be able to adapt.

“In the earlier days we used to have them coming in from Guyana from all over, especially to the traditional high schools, you used to have these persons who were there who would have done very well so we know, in terms of recruiting, we’d have to recruit persons who can fit out situations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Fayval Williams also emphasised that recruitment of teachers to work in Jamaica is not new. She noted that the recruits are being targeted for science, technology, engineering and mathematics subject areas, and sought to assure that the ministry will engage in a comprehensive orientation process to ensure that the educators are able to adjust.

“Traditionally, the ministry would have done some orientation with them and remember we’ve also had teachers from other cultures in our classrooms,” she said. “I don’t think there should be any fear or concern ‘cause we (will) work with the teachers who come in.”

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com