Reading to be brought back on schools’ timetables, says Morris Dixon
Published:Thursday | June 12, 2025 | 12:12 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Reading is to be returned to the primary-school timetable, says Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon, minister of education, skills, youth and information, who yesterday acknowledged there is a literacy crisis impacting schools across the country.
Morris Dixon, who was addressing yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew, said the reintroduction of reading would be done for the start of the next academic term.
“You would have heard me announce that, come September, from grade one to grade three, we are timetabling reading. It had been taken off of the timetables some time ago, and we are putting it back on the timetable,” she said.
She was responding to questions raised following a Gleaner report revealing that more than 70 per cent of the roughly 220 grade-seven students at Pembroke Hall High School are unable to read, or do so only at a grade-three level. Some are unable to identify letters of the alphabet.
“We cannot afford for our children to leave primary school not literate. So that’s our policy position. We have instances like this where students are entering into high school who are not literate, and that’s why we’ve put in some programmes. We call it the tactical approach,” the minister said.
She said this approach focuses on literacy in schools that are challenged. She said reading specialists are working with the school as part of greater intervention efforts, which will include a breakfast programme.
Reverend Claude Ellis, principal at Pembroke Hall High, told The Gleaner that some students are suspected of having special education needs, but remain unassessed due to long wait times at the government’s primary diagnostic centre – the Mico Care Centre – and a lack of parental cooperation, as they remain in denial.
Ellis said getting private assessments for students has proven “quite prohibitive” because of the cost, while arguing that the wait time at Mico Care is unreasonably long.
Private assessment costs can range between $40,000 and $200,000, while the wait time at Mico may be a minimum of one year.
His comment followed a Sunday Gleaner report on June 1 about hundreds of special-needs children who faced silent struggles while out of school awaiting assessments.
Families lamented the country’s inability to meet the educational needs of children with special needs.
At Wednesday’s briefing, Morris Dixon reiterated the Government’s position, initially stated in the report, while acknowledging that there are gaps in Jamaica’s education system and the assessments done.
These assessments include the grade-three diagnostic test, the grade-four literacy test and the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams.
“I think there are gaps, and I think it is clear that there are gaps. You do the grade-three test and that tells you what’s happening in terms of numeracy… ,” she said, noting that there are some schools where the leadership are spending a lot of time on corrective measures which work.
She said school boards must be proactive.
“Remember, all these children at Pembroke Hall High are coming from primary schools, and so the primary schools have to take that ownership too and work with us in the ministry,” Morris Dixon said.
She previously told The Sunday Gleaner that, as a first step, the Government is investing in diagnostics, noting plans to construct a $180-million centre.
The minister also stated that the education ministry has asked The University of the West Indies (UWI) for support, disclosing that the institution is providing new courses for special needs assessment, diagnosis and treatment.
She said the Government is also working with The UWI to expand programmes offered on speech pathology, behaviour and occupational therapy.
Further, she said the ministry has expanded the number of shadows provided for children and doubled the stipend for shadows.
Morris Dixon said that in summer 2024, the ministry partnered with The UWI to assess approximately 2,000 students who sat the grade-five component of the PEP exam and performed below standard. She said the results were sent to their schools.
She further added that scholarships are available for the additional training of teachers in the field.