THE performance report of approximately 100 schools will be released by the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) in a few weeks.

Minister of Education, Youth and Information Senator Ruel Reid made the disclosure during this week’s back-to-school conference for Region One at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

He said once the report is “launched”, discussions will be held with a view to strengthening the shortcomings and looking at best practices moving forward.

“We are going to engage you, so you will have a view of how we see your performance and the areas we can work together to improve because we are building better communities as we improve our schools,” Reid told the audience, which included principals and board chairmen.

He said all stakeholders should work together to better the areas that require improvement.

According to Reid, the NEI is one of the systems which inform the ministry of the deficiencies in the education system.

In the meantime, he said that people in the sector should not be scared by the term accountability, as long as they are performing at their optimum.

“We get very scared in Jamaica when we talk about accountability, as (if) to say accountability means you are going to lose your job. That’s not what it means; it means we [who] are blessed with a job must, by our actions, demonstrate that we are doing the work for which we have committed to do, and that we must do it to the best of our abilities,” the minister said.

Since its inception in 2008, the NEI has developed and implemented a robust framework of school inspections, benchmarked against international standards, and contextualised to fit the educational environment in Jamaica.

The inspectorate has been working diligently to achieve its mandate of assessing, reporting and recommending continuous improvement initiatives for the development of education in Jamaica.

The NEI is an agency of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information.

Source: Jamaica Observer