Jamaica Gleaner Report | May 08, 2023
Savanna-la-Mar Mayor Bertel Moore is urging parents to be more proactive in raising and disciplining their children and to give more support to the nation’s educators.
Moore made the call on Sunday while addressing the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) annual Education Week church service at the St George’s Anglican Church in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.
“Parents, I am calling on you to help your teachers. Your teachers are going through rough times, and we must all try to make it better for them,” said Moore. “Our teachers in Jamaica are doing their best to keep the young ones with a steady mind, but what I see out there are not parents, but children having children, and that makes it so hard for the teachers because they have their lives to live also. Yet they have to monitor these children when they come to school just as if [they are] their own kids.”
Pointing out that there were too many physical conflicts, he also challenged parents to address disciplinary issues.
“When I pass some schools at times, what I see is the little ones – who are maybe 10 years old – fighting. I have to stop and tell them to cut it out and go home to their parents,” he said. “When the poor teachers have to teach these little children, who we expect to be the future of our country, Jamaica, land we love, how can they put their 100 per cent out there for these little students?”
ROLE OF VILLAGE
JTA President La Sonja Harrison also urged Jamaicans to return to the days of the village raising children.
“As we celebrate Child Month under the theme ‘Children Need Love and Protection … Get Involved’, we are emphasising how important it is for parents to play their role and get involved. May we reignite the village to truly raise their children,” said Harrison.
In his sermon, host pastor Bishop Hartley Perrin lamented the lack of interest in education or poor discipline that some students currently exhibit.
“To be a good teacher in the current climate is not easy, to say the least. The truth is that more is required of teachers now more than ever before, but students, in the main, lack the desire and will to learn, and many feel that education is not important [or] can be deferred to some convenient time,” said Perrin, who is also Westmoreland’s custos.