Literacy must be developed at the community level says MOE’s Pinnock
Published:Thursday | June 19, 2025 | 12:08 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
Dr Michelle Pinnock, the regional director at the Ministry of Education’s Region Four, says that while the ministry is planning literacy programmes in collaboration with western Jamaica’s tertiary education institutions, communities and families must also play a role in developing and sustaining students’ reading skills.
Pinnock made the call while addressing Monday’s launch of the Montego Bay Community College’s (MBCC) 50th anniversary celebration, which was held at the St James-based tertiary institution under the theme, ‘Celebrating 50 years: Transforming lives and inspiring excellence in education’.
“In partnership with the MBCC, the Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College, and the Knockalva Polytechnic College in western Jamaica, we are talking about developing programmes with relevance where literacy is everybody’s issue. As we get ready for the summer, in this region the education ministry is putting on some programmes to help our parents to sustain this literacy throughout the summer, because when you have a break and children go home, you find that those skills are not developed, and with literacy, if you do not use it, then you lose it,” said Pinnock.
“We want to encourage our community, whether through your school or through your family, to actually do more reading there. When last have you read a book? When last have you modelled for a child this business of reading? What we are saying is that it is going to be the community, the village, that will have to help us with this literacy, and so we are developing the home-school relationship,” Pinnock added. “We have a national crisis, and we all have to ensure that we really develop our literacy skills.”
Pinnock’s comments were in response to reports earlier this month that approximately 70 per cent of the 220 grade-seven students at Pembroke Hall High School, in St Andrew, are either unable to read or are only reading at the grade-three level, with some struggling to recognise letters of the alphabet.
Following that revelation, Education Minister Senator Dana Morris Dixon told a post-Cabinet press briefing on June 11 that reading will be reintroduced to the primary-school timetable, to be done for the start of the next academic term in September.
Speaking further on the issue, Pinnock said among the upcoming programmes to address literacy concerns will be training for teachers up to the grade-three level, to help students to appreciate the value of reading through different methods.
“The MBCC will partner with the education ministry to offer teacher training sessions right here on this campus, along with Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College for our teachers in grades one, two and three, because we are going to have to meet our children where they are. Whether it is through gaming or through coding, we are going to get them reading, and so together, the village is going to ensure that we are able to enhance this whole business of literacy,” said Pinnock.
Meanwhile, MBCC Principal Dr Darien Henry said Jamaica must do away with the belief that tertiary-level education is unimportant.
“For the tertiary education sector, we are very, very concerned that more students are not accessing our systems, they are not accessing our programmes, and we are responding where that is concerned. We need to glamorise education in this country, because there is a seeming narrative that we need to mash down, that college is not relevant and a degree is not important,” said Henry. “We need to mash it down, and we need to perpetuate and telegraph the message that a college degree, a college education, and life beyond post-secondary education, is very important.”