Malabver wants mandatory programme for learning-challenged students
Published:Wednesday | December 31, 2025 | 12:09 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Mark Malabver is calling for the mandatory installation of a diversion programme in schools to assess children who may have learning deficiencies or behavioural issues, to ease pressure on teachers who struggle with discovering and managing those challenges among their students.
Participating in an online education forum last Saturday evening, Malabver suggested that teachers should be trained on how to adequately address the need for students to be assessed.
“I believe that there has to be a diversion programme at the earliest convenience, once a teacher picks up that there is a problem, and our teachers ought to be trained in a particular way, when there are learning deficiencies, to divert the child to a relevant centre – not a boot camp – to be assessed to see what the learning challenges are or what the learning deficiencies are. If that is done, then that sort of data follows the child throughout the system,” said Malabver.
“Let’s take, for example, a child who is autistic. Teachers are discovering them, rather than the teachers or the schools being notified that these children are autistic. It is something that we have to fix, it is something that we have to put the right sort of investment in, and it should be mandatory,” Malabver added.
According to the JTA president, one obstacle to this plan is the cultural practice of parents’ resistance to send their children for behavioural or educational assessment.
“One of the challenges I have come across in many instances is that when we encourage the parents to go and have the child assessed, the first thing that the parent says is ‘nuttin nuh wrong wid di pickney,’ and nothing is done, because by right as educators, we cannot mandate or force the parents to go and have the child assessed. I believe it ought to be something that is mandatory, and once somebody in the school signs off on it, then the school can require that the child be assessed,” said Malabver.
In June this year, the Ministry of Education, acknowledging the issue of undiagnosed learning challenges among students, said that special-needs services are offered at 99 locations across Jamaica, including through private partnerships. As of 2021, approximately 184 special education teachers were employed across these institutions to serve roughly 6,800 students, with nearly 6,000 of those students being in public schools.
Meanwhile, Lynton Weir, the president of the Jamaica Association of Principals and Vice Principals, told Saturday’s forum that more effort should be made to instil a stronger sense of discipline among students.
“We must be mindful that children live what they learn, and Jamaica is a very undisciplined society, and we have to try to change the parameters as it relates to discipline. I think it is important how we train our young people, and if we are going to be able to communicate with our young people effectively, discipline is going to be very important,” said Weir.