KINGSTON, Jamaica – Primary School Teachers from three parishes across Jamaica are to benefit from expert training in Special Needs detection. Representatives from the 124 institutions from the parishes of St. James, St. Catherine and St. Andrew will be taught to identify particular education impediments resulting from learning difficulties, physical disability, or emotional and behavioral challenges, with the hopes that treatment can be sought for the affected students.
GraceKennedy Money Services’ Senior VP of Marketing and Operations Noel Greenland comments “for too long, literacy has been hampered in the classroom by undetected learning disabilities. Children with these unseen challenges have been labeled as troublesome or slow by some educators simply because the behavior demonstrated by the child couldn’t be classified into anything familiar, with a name that the teachers knew. With these workshops, we hope to help teachers identify those students in their classes who may need special attention and show them the actions to take to get help for the students”.
An animated St. James facilitator Donna R. Richards
The teacher training session is the newest component of the GraceKennedy Money Services / Western Union I-PLEDGE programme. I-PLEDGE stands for ‘I Promise to Lend Encouragement to Develop Growth in Education’. The programme was established by GraceKennedy Money Services through its brand Western Union and was designed to support community development with an emphasis on Primary literacy.
Participants in the St. James leg of the Western Union Special Needs Detection training session participating in one of the day’s many hands on exercises.
Recently, Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites announced a $40 million commitment by the Government of Jamaica to build 2 additional diagnostic centers; one at Church Teachers’ College in Mandeville and Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College in Montego Bay. The assessment center at Mico has long been the go to spot for Special Needs evaluation. But although some 4000 children have already been diagnosed in Jamaica to have Special Needs, there still remain many students in the school system with undetected learning challenges.
Greenland adds “Research shows that early detection of and attention to special needs is best for the child. Children with these challenges have the ability to learn and become productive members of society, but the first hurdle to get over is detection, and Western Union is committing to assisting with that. Children with learning disabilities are not a lost cause. Only around 1% of all teachers have received formal training in special education. We have a long way to go”.
The first of the two training sessions took place at the start of the Western Union Reading Week in Montego Bay in April.
The training sessions are to be facilitated by Donna R. Richards, head of the Catherine Hall Primary Special Education Unit in St. James and Dr. Hixwell Douglas of the Special Education Unit in the Ministry of Education. The second Western Union workshop will take place at the Knutsford Court Hotel on May 10, 2013.
St. James participants in the Western Union Special Needs Detection training session
