The real solution to Jamaica’s teacher migration

During their studies I noticed something that was quite odd to me at the time. They were all going to a health facility assigned by their institution.

I remember seeing them going to ‘work’ at these health facilities, most times a hospital, during varying hours of the day which prompted me to ask them if they were working full time already.

They would all laugh whenever I posed this question to them, and would simply respond by educating me on how the teaching model for nurses-in-training function in Jamaica.

In explaining this modus operandi they would let me know that 90% of their training and development takes place at a health facility with the other 10% of their time spent in the classroom.

This after further analysis on my own made perfect sense, because as trainee nurses they were being taught in a practical and pragmatic manner in that they will be fully equip for the real world of work by the time their apprenticeship is complete. This strategy is the very reason why for these many decades and in the future to come, Jamaica as a country will continue to churn out so many highly competent nurses despite the high migration rate in the health sector.

To the contrary this is not the case in the education sector. For example a trainee teacher reading for a degree is guarantee the most 40 hours of practicum during a three-year programme. This must be the irony of all ironies because at the end of studying to become a teacher and be employable, three years minimum teaching experience is the yardstick that a school principal demands when a post becomes vacant. This is why most teachers after graduating from teacher’s college or university have such a challenge being employed at an institution of learning because they simply have not acquired the experience to teach in the classroom.

Our freshly minted enrolled and registered nurses have no such issues getting employment as they would have attained at least two years of rigorous training working in real-life situation at a health facility in Jamaica that is understaffed and under-resourced for the most part. After three years of training a nurse in Jamaica can confidently state on her/his resume that they boast three years working experience, but their teacher counterpart has only 40 hours of teaching experience to show after three years of studies.

The Ministry of Education must therefore move post-haste and adopt this policy that has served our health sector so well given the increase in teacher migration.  All the incentivized initiatives to stymie the migration of nurses from Jamaica have had little impact on dissuading locals from seeking greener pastures. What has save us from a mass shortage of nurses over the years is the production of highly competent nurses who seamlessly transition from the classroom into the health facilities across the country.

Teacher migration isn’t new and in fact will continue for the foreseeable future. What the Ministry of Education must do is to ensure that the supply chain, in terms of producing quality teachers, is highly productive and efficient to meet the demands.

This way, just like our nurses, Jamaica can export teachers while consistently maintaining a cadre of competent teachers to fill the vacancies left behind.

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