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The history of education in Jamaica is perhaps best understood in the context of the island's colonial past. The education system and its administration were fashioned after the British system; and many of the developments in the history of Jamaican education can be seen as responses to events such as the abolition of slavery 1834, the advent of suffrage in 1944, and the achievement of inde…
A bipartisan commission of the Jamaica Legislature drafted Jamaica's constitution during 1961-1962. It was approved in Great Britain and went into effect when Jamaica achieved full independence on August 6, 1962. It provides for a parliamentary/ministerial form of government. The Governor-General, who serves as the Queen's representative, has the authority to appoint ministers and to…
The educational system in Jamaica is outlined below and described in more detail in the following sections. Education through the six years of primary school is compulsory and is free in government-sponsored schools. The age of entry into primary school is six years, and children generally complete primary school at age twelve. The academic year runs from September to July (with some local variati…
In the 1960s Jamaican educators became interested in the ideas on compensatory education that were embodied in the Head Start program that was being implemented in the United States. D.R.B. Grant organized a team from UWI to strengthen the educational program in the basic schools. Supported by a grant from the Bernard Van Leer Foundation in The Netherlands, the team focused on enhancing the educat…
Secondary education covers five years (grades seven to eleven) with an additional two years (grades twelve and thirteen) for those who want to move on to higher education. The years in secondary school are divided into two cycles: first-cycle (grades seven and eight) and second cycle (grades nine through eleven). The five-year program leads to the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Secondary Edu…
Jamaica is affiliated with the University of the West Indies (UWI), which has campuses in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad. This regional institution is headquartered at the Mona campus located in Kingston, Jamaica. The University of Technology (Jamaica Utech), which was previously known as the College of Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST) and received university status in 1995, is Jamaica'…
Funds for all agencies and ministries come through the Ministry of Finance, which is also responsible for collecting all taxes, overseeing financial institutions, and for managing the country's debt. The MOE&C receives funds from general revenues and from certain taxes that are earmarked for education and/or for specific programs. For example, the HEART/NTA programs receive direct fu…
Jamaica continues to be plagued by high unemployment. Part of this is because there simply are not enough jobs, and part of it is due to relatively low literacy rates and the lack of appropriate job skills among Jamaicans. The government has decided that investing in education will provide the best routes to solving the problem. Raising literacy rates and providing job skills is expected to enable…
The post-emancipation formation of an educational system led to the obvious need for teachers and to the recognition that primary school teachers must be trained locally, since the supply of foreign missionaries and British-trained "imports" could not possibly keep up with demand. It appears that most "homegrown" teachers in the early years after emancipation gained acc…
The MOE&C engaged in a concerted effort during 1999-2001 to rationalize the educational system in Jamaica and to define more explicitly its role and the role of education in Jamaican society. The MOE&C defines its mission as "to provide a system which secures quality education and training for all persons in Jamaica and achieves effective integration of educational and cultura…
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User Comments
about 1 year ago
kerry
Jamaica - History Background, Constitutional Legal Foundations, Educational System—overview, Preprimary Primary Education, Secondary Education
almost 2 years ago
dulsie johnson
i wish there was some information about jamaica's education system from 1835 to 1930's