Building a Better Jamaica

Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Jamaica Observer

THE Jamaica Teachers' Association has welcomed plans by the State to purchase property for the first 'time-out' facility for disruptive students, while urging the Government to consider more of such facilities.

The JTA was responding to an announcement by Education Minister Andrew Holness, who told the JTA's annual conference in Ocho Rios, St Ann last Wednesday that Cabinet was expected to sign off on an agreement to purchase a property in St Elizabeth to accommodate the new time-out facility for problem students in the system. The property to be used is the old Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) training facility in Malvern, St Elizabeth.

The property was bought by the JFF in 2006 for $22 million, mainly from money donated by the Federation of International Associations of Football (FIFA) from its 'Gold Project' fund, designed to help uplift small, less developed nations with their football infrastructure. It was expected to house a football academy.

Holness said the facility was being purchased in response to complaints from principals about students who disrupt the learning environment, affecting their learning and that of their classmates. The time-out facility will form part of the ministry's Adjustment and Social Interaction programme.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding had in 2008 committed his Government to the provision of time-out centres for out-of-control students. The decision was one of several coming out of an emergency meeting with Golding, about 20 school principals, Education Minister Holness, then National Security Minister Colonel Trevor MacMillan and then Commissioner of Police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin, at Jamaica House in November that year. The meeting came in the wake of the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Shevon Johnson by a fellow student on the corridors of the Dunoon Technical High School in Kingston in full view of dozens of students.

"It is a welcomed development and it is one that we have waited a very long time for so we can do nothing but welcome it. Of course we are also hoping that more time-out centres will come because the problem is pervasive," said newly elected JTA President Nadine Molloy — who at the time of that incident had been president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools.

"We want to be able to place those children in the system who are in need of the intervention in a different type of setting without robbing them of the opportunity of pursuing their education, so we are looking at other centres and certainly welcoming this one," she said.

Molloy said this kind of targeted intervention will have "a positive impact in the sense that the students will be in a setting where they can receive specialised attention in terms of behavioural change management strategies applied to their particular situation.

"It will also mean that we wouldn't run the risk of contravening the laws in terms of how do you deal with problem children who run afoul of the law. It means that we would have less disruptive children in schools and so time would not be spent on that intensive kind of behaviour management in schools and so we would be able to spend more time on teaching and learning so instructional time will certainly be enhanced by that," she added.

The education ministry had promised to make at least one such facility operational last year, but Holness said such plans had been put on hold after the fire at the Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre in St Ann in May of last year which killed seven girls. It is hoped that the centre will be up and running in time for the new school year, which begins next month.

The education minister, at the same time, said the introduction of deans of discipline was working well in some schools, but said there were problems in others.

"The results have been uneven; some schools are doing well, while some schools are still trying to work out the authority structure between the dean of discipline and the principal," he said.