Jamaica’s Education ministry recruiting foreign teachers for new academic year

Jamaica’s Ministry of Education and Youth is in the process of recruiting teachers from overseas to fill the gaps left by massive teacher resignations. This will be one of the many retentions strategies use by the ministry for the 2024/25 academic year, which begins in September.

Acting Chief Education Officer, Terry-Ann Thomas Gayle, advised that teachers are being sought from various countries.

“We currently have engaged Nigeria, Ghana, the Philippines and India. So, we are looking all over,” she said in response to a question posed during the ministry’s Region Six 2024 Back-to-School Conference at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston today.

The conference was held under the theme ‘Shaping the Future: STEM/STEAM and the Transformation Agenda’.

In an effort to aid schools with the recruitment process, last year the Education ministry dispatched various strategies weeks in advance of the academic year.

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Schools received pre-approval to make early recruitment decisions, with the green light given for engaging part-time teachers, retired educators, and pre-trained graduates in their final year of study.

Reports are that schools were also advised to utilize an array of classroom management tactics, including merging small classes and increasing the use of information communication technology.

“There are areas within that bulletin that will remain. But we’re giving you an additional pool from which you can select your teachers,” Thomas Gayle said.

She explained that school administrators will be able to use the ministry’s job portal, https://jobs.moey.gov.jm/, to identify and recruit teachers who are being engaged from foreign countries.