Black Immigrant Daily News
Former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth, Dr Maurice Smith, is making no apologies for his view that persons tasked with leading the ministry should be successful educators.
In fact, Smith, who is also the Registrar at the University of the West Indies (UWI), has expressed disbelief that persons who have not received formal training in education are directing policy for the sector.
“I believe that people who lead the Ministry of Education – (and are) within the Ministry of Education – should have been first successful classroom (teachers) and principals,” declared Smith as scores of persons clapped and shouted in agreement at Thursday’s Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) symposium.
“I make no apologies for that!” stressed the man who served as permanent secretary in the Education Ministry from November 2015 to October 2016.
In using the medical field as an example of where experts dictate the issues affecting their field, Smith said the same should be applied to the field of education.
He elaborated that, “I had to take my mother to the doctor a few months ago, and I had to check out the credentials of the doctor, because to deal with the issue – and thank God she is well – I didn’t need a neophyte or a novice looking over my mother.
“… And I don’t understand how everybody who is not in education can come to education and tell educators (what to do). I don’t understand it,” Smith remarked.
The former principal director of the National College for Educational Leadership (NCEL) said the country’s education system now demands leaders who understand the issues relative to it, instead of leaders aligned to political parties or organisations.
“… And I don’t understand how people who are not trained educators want to direct policy and practice…,” said Smith as he was interrupted by members of the audience, including teachers, who cheered and clapped loudly.
“I don’t understand it!” he repeated amid more cheers.
When the noise died down, the educator stated: “So, what Jamaica needs are not people who are connected to certain organisations, or connected to certain parties. That’s not what we need!
“We need people who understand the system,” he insisted.
While Smith did not call names, the current Minister of Education and Youth, Fayval Williams, is not an educator by profession, but rather, a chartered financial analyst and a former director of Kingston Properties Limited.
That is a clear example that in Jamaica’s political system, an individual’s professional career does not dictate the Cabinet portfolio they are assigned to.
The last educator to head the Education Ministry was Ruel Reid, who held that position from March 2016 to March 2019, when he resigned in the face of fraud allegations against him.
Reid was on secondment to the ministry from Jamaica College, where he was the principal up to November of last year, though he did not officially return to that substantial post at the school after his resignation from the Education Ministry and fraud charges being subsequently laid against him.
Karl Samuda, who took over from Reid and served as minister between March 2019 and September 2020, was not an educator by profession. He is a businessman and a farmer.
Ronald ‘Ronnie’ Thwaites, who severed as Minister of Education under the People’s National Party (PNP) Administration from January 2012 to February 2016, is an attorney-at-law, a religious leader and radio broadcaster by profession. However, he has reportedly held several positions in academia.
Andrew Holness, before becoming prime minister, served as Education Minister from 2007 to 2011. He, too, was never a school teacher or principal.
The PNP’s Maxine Henry-Wilson and Ambassador Burchell Whitman are two other educators who went on to serve as ministers of education.
Whiteman served between 1992 and 2002, while Henry-Wilson was head of the Education Ministry from 2002 to 2007, both in the Cabinets of then Prime Minister, PJ Patterson.
NewsAmericasNow.com
