The Ministry of Education and Youth has launched an initiative aimed at ending violence in schools.

Dubbed ‘Just Medz It’, the yearlong campaign seeks to shift the culture of violent confrontations and responses among children and students and equip them with conflict-resolution strategies that are peaceful and healthy.

It was launched on Wednesday (October 19) at Wolmer’s Boys’ School, National Heroes Circle, Kingston.

Portfolio Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, said the campaign is a national call to action for every single Jamaican and organisation to support efforts to engender and sustain a culture of discipline and peace in the home, school, and community.

She said that the Ministry intends to consolidate its human and financial resources, which will be brought to bear on the campaign.

“This includes the Safety and Security in Schools Unit, the Guidance Counselling Unit, the Health and Family Life Education programme, the Character Education programme, the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), and the National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC),” she indicated.

Just Medz It will employ a multifaceted approach to reduce the incidence of violence in schools by improving the physical infrastructure, teaching and incentivising strategies to resolve conflicts peacefully, and providing psychosocial support to students and parents.

It will also utilise the creative arts to maximise whole-school engagement and introduce character education programmes to promote a culture of pro-social behaviour among students.

Expansion of the uniformed groups in schools, clubs, and societies is a key intervention under the programme.

Noting that the initiative will involve multi-sector engagement, Mrs. Williams said non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the private sector, community-based and faith-based groups are invited to partner with the Ministry on the initiative.

Contending that violence in the society is being reflected in the learning institutions, she urged every citizen to play their part by becoming “promoters of peace”.

“We want a national call to action for educators, parents, students and the general public to take personal and collective responsibility to end violence in schools,” she said, reiterating the Ministry’s commitment to ensuring that learning institutions are safe environments for children.

Other strategies under the initiative include increased guidance counselling services at schools, development of services to facilitate research and promote public discourse, as well as policy initiatives to prevent violence in schools.

A public education campaign will be conducted for the duration of the campaign and benchmark indicators will be established to determine the efficacy of the initiative.

Parents are being encouraged to practise and teach proper conflict resolution methods to their children, to help prevent violent behavioural outcomes.

The call came from Minister of Education and Youth, Hon. Fayval Williams, as she addressed a virtual Dress and Grooming Consultation Session with parents on Tuesday, October 4.

“What we are seeing playing out in our schools is just the behaviour that they have absorbed in the homes and in the communities… and when they come to school, they don’t have a sense of how [to] interact with other students [during a disagreement],” she said.

The Minister pointed out that too often children are exposed to violence within their homes and communities.

“Violence has been perpetrated on them. We really need to stop as a society and understand the negative impact of that, and to know that there are boundaries and rules,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Williams noted that a study conducted on four-year-old students from the Early Childhood sector three years ago showed that “maybe 20 per cent or so, by the time they get to [age] four, have behavioural and early literacy and numeracy issues”.

She argued that the results indicate that many of those children faced physical and verbal abuse within the home.

“We need to stop as a society and understand that we are really damaging the heart [and] the minds of our children by the things we do and how we relate to them,” the Minister said.

“We interact with them in a very rough way. There’s plenty of research that is telling us that we are damaging the psyche of our children when we hit them, yell, or hurl expletives at them,” she added.

Persons are encouraged to report child abuse to the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) by calling the 24-hour helpline, 2-1-1.

Two new Coaster buses were handed over to Lacovia High School in St. Elizabeth, on October 7, by the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Project of the Government of Japan.

The Project has been in operation since 1995, to help respond to the needs in the education and other sectors of the economy.

In January of this yea, the organisation gave the institution a grant to purchase the buses. The grant was approved under the Ministry of Education and Youth’s Expanded Pilot School Bus Programme and the Japanese organisation. The total value of the grant was US$135,014.

Minister of Education and Youth, Hon. Fayval Williams, in her address at the handover ceremony, said the buses represent a “continuation of the excellent support to Jamaica’s education system that the government of Japan has extended to us under the project, which was started in April of 2015.”

She noted that Jamaica and Japan have signed several similar agreements over the years which are indicative of the strong bilateral relationship the countries have enjoyed since 1964.

“This underscores the friendship, understanding and cooperation between our two countries and we take the opportunity to commend the Ambassador of Japan to Jamaica, His Excellency Masaya Fujiwara, for the continued support [for] education,” Mrs. Williams said.

She added that investments in education, such as these, will benefit Lacovia High and Jamaica as a whole.

The Minister explained that under the Ministry’s expanded pilot bus programme, schools in need submit requests, whether directly or through the National Education Trust (NET), to the embassy of Japan in Jamaica for final consideration under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Project.

Through this programme, the government of Japan offers financial assistance for development projects designed to meet the diverse needs of developing countries such as Jamaica.

“The grants approved are used to purchase school buses from Toyota Jamaica for the improvement of the school’s transportation system. This is a most welcome addition to the efforts of the Ministry to expand the rural school bus service,” she said.

Mrs. Williams pointed out that the Government currently spends $395 million annually on transportation, primarily for students who are on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), reaching some 7,500 students in terms of rural transportation.

Mrs. Williams thanked the Government and people of Japan for the buses, and assured them that the principal, staff and teachers at Lacovia High School will take the best care of the vehicles.

For his part, Mr. Fujiwara said that both Jamaica and Japan share the belief that no country can develop effectively without investing in its people.

“The most vulnerable citizens, including our children, should never be left behind in the process of development,” he emphasised.

The Ambassador said it is hoped that buses purchased through the Japanese organisation will help to strengthen the education system on the island.

Principal of Lacovia High, Ricardo Bennett, said the school is “eternally grateful for the kind consideration of the people of Japan, the Ministry of Education and Youth, the Lacovia High School team and the many friends of our school”.

A book that chronicles the development of the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) from its formative years into what has become one of the Caribbean’s foremost authorities on standardisation was launched on Thursday (September 29).

Entitled ‘The Development of the Jamaica Bureau of Standards’, the book is authored by Revd. Dr. Artnel Henry, who was the BSJ’s Executive Director for 27 years, from 1973 to 2000.

Minister of Education and Youth, Hon. Fayval Williams, in her remarks at the launch held at the Courtyard by Marriott, Kingston, hailed the tome as a documentation of an important aspect of Jamaica’s history.

“I am delighted that you wrote this book because it is going to be a great reference for our students now and those to come in the future,” she said.

“Thank you, Dr. Henry, for sharing your story, for sharing your perspective, your take on nation-building. You have expanded our knowledge of the BSJ. You made us experience a little bit of the history,” Mrs. Williams added.

Dr. Henry, in his remarks, recalled some of the notable achievements of the BSJ during his tenure of almost 30 years.

“We established the CARICOM Standards Council, which afterwards, became the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) and if you go through the Caribbean, you will find seven standards organisations because of the work of the BSJ,” he noted.

Under his leadership, the entity developed a robust structure with various divisions and 19 laboratories to support its vigorous testing regime.

As the leading advocate for standardisation in the English-speaking Caribbean at the time, Dr. Henry was integral in the BSJ’s membership, on behalf of Jamaica, in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

He was also instrumental in launching the National Certification Mark Programme in 1984, which awards certification to products and processes deemed to be consistently produced to reliable standards.

The BSJ is a statutory body established by the Standards Act of 1969 to promote and encourage standardisation in relation to commodities, processes and practices.

Its mandate includes the provision of services in relation to conformity assessment (certification, testing and calibration) and metrology.

The entity facilitates the development of standards and other requirements to which particular commodities, services, practices and processes must comply; monitors for compliance; conducts tests and calibrating instruments; certifies products and management systems; and provides industrial training and research and education in standardisation.

The Ministry of Education and Youth is reporting a successful first day of the full resumption of schools for the 2022/23 academic year.

This is the first time that the Ministry has authorised the return of full, in-person learning in schools for the beginning of a new school year, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several schools did not open today, as they are still holding orientation sessions. It is anticipated that these institutions will officially reopen next week.

Portfolio Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, and other Ministry officials toured the Franklyn Town Primary, Mountain View Primary, and Maverley Primary and Infant Schools in the Corporate Area on Monday (September 5) to assess activities for the full resumption of schools.

Speaking with journalists during her tour of Mountain View Primary School, Mrs. Williams said the Ministry will, this year, be increasing its efforts to address the issue of learning loss and improve student performance.

“Beyond bringing students back into the normal school environment and doing the regular things that we have to do; we have to realise that we would have lost a bit over the last two years. So, we have to [redouble our efforts] now to ensure that our children recover [to] where they were, at least prior to when we entered the pandemic and even beyond that,” she stated.

Mrs. Williams said the Ministry will be placing emphasis on recognising and addressing challenges faced by students and employing the necessary interventions to address these.

“There will be a lot of focus this year on ensuring our students who are on the different paths, and that would have been communicated on their Primary Exit Profile (PEP) results, especially those who are transitioning to high school, to let the teachers in the high school know whether or not they need intervention, and the quantum of that intervention,” she said, noting that this will target students in early-childhood, primary and high schools.

Minister Williams also urged parents, teachers, and other stakeholders to assist in instilling discipline among students.

“This year, we want to focus on discipline in schools. We have increased the number of guidance counsellors… available in our schools. So, there are more available to our students if they are experiencing issues that they might not necessarily speak to the teachers about,” she said.