Harrison: Stop normalising broken schools

WESTERN BUREAU:

Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President La Sonja Harrison is urging the Government to fast-track the rehabilitation and restoration of schools that have still not been repaired almost one year after Hurricane Melissa struck the island last October.

Harrison made the call yesterday while addressing a press conference at the SeaGarden Hotel in Montego Bay, St James, during the JTA’s campaign strategy retreat and central executive training meeting.

“Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in October 2025, and more than 11 months later, there are affected schools where critical work remains outstanding, including sections of hurricane-damaged infrastructure, where we have been advised that work has yet to begin. Hurricane Melissa did not create every problem we observed, as some deficiencies existed long before the hurricane,” said Harrison.

“Melissa damaged an education infrastructure that was already contending with longstanding maintenance, health, safety, and security issues. Damaged roofs, mould, termite infestation, and longstanding infrastructure deficiencies cannot become normal simply because teachers, principals, and communities have learned to work around them, and ‘Reformation Now’ requires us to stop normalising the unacceptable,” added Harrison.

Six hundred and eighty-eight schools across Jamaica suffered varying degrees of infrastructural damage following Hurricane Melissa’s landfall, with 311 assessed as having suffered the most extensive damage. Of those schools, 102 were identified in the Ministry of Education’s Region 4 division, covering St James, Hanover and Westmoreland.

According to the Ministry of Education, $3.86 billion has been spent under the Hurricane Melissa School Infrastructure Recovery Programme up to July 20. However, reports indicate that some Melissa-affected schools are still carrying out rehabilitation work or have not begun repairs at all, despite Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon having declared that all western schools were to reopen for the start of the 2026-2027 school year on September 7.

At yesterday’s press briefing, Harrison said that she and other JTA representatives had visited approximately 20 schools in western Jamaica during the past month to assess their infrastructural conditions following Melissa.

“We welcome the repair and rehabilitation of our schools, because the JTA has called repeatedly for this work, and we want it undertaken urgently. But at some institutions, construction and teaching and learning are occurring simultaneously,” she said. “We are not asking for construction to stop; we are asking for construction to be done safely. The choice is not between repairing schools and protecting children, because we must do both.”

Meanwhile, in a recorded message presented at the briefing, Princess Moss, president of the United States-based National Education Association (NEA), said her organisation stands in solidarity with the JTA’s advocacy efforts, particularly in light of the NEA’s fact-finding observations about Jamaica’s education sector over the past week.

“Nearly a year after Hurricane Melissa, schools remain in despair, students are learning in classrooms without rooms and in temporary tents, and without enough functional classrooms, students are squeezed into overcrowded rooms and class sizes are unacceptably high. Despite these conditions, Jamaican educators continue to achieve high outcomes for their students and teach with creativity and passion,” said Moss.

“For too long, Jamaica’s children have been asked to wait for the schools they deserve. Jamaica’s students, educators, and communities cannot wait any longer and are rightfully demanding reformation now.”

The event, a collaboration between the JTA and the NEA, was staged under the theme, ‘Reformation Now: Schools Jamaican Children Deserve’.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com