The Government is to expand its partnership with the Mico University College, to fill gaps in the area of special education, so that more students with learning challenges can receive timely intervention. State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green, says despite gains made in tackling the issue of learning by some students, “significant gaps still remain among the nation’s teachers to detect children with special needs, and appropriately address them.”

The Government will be aiming to strengthen the National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC) as a way of getting parents more involved in the academic affairs of their children. Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, made the remark at the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) 15th Annual Education Conference at the Jewel Runaway Bay Beach and Golf Resort in St. Ann on March 29.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Information will begin full the roll-out of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Curriculum in schools when the 2016/17 academic year gets underway in September. This follows the success of the pilot introduced in 49 institutions across the island in September 2015. The curriculum will be implemented in over 500 primary and secondary institutions across the Ministry’s six regions.

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator Ruel Reid, says the teaching of civics will be re-introduced in schools. He emphasised that national awareness is an important part of a child’s development, and the teaching of civics must again occupy its rightful pride of place in schools.