IN A bid to raise the literacy level of students across Jamaica and in turn national literacy standards, the Ministry of Education is planning to refocus its efforts on a number of initiatives geared towards a national literacy thrust.

Speaking last Friday during the first in a series of round-table discussions on literacy held at the Ministry of Education in Kingston, Andrew Holness, education minister, said he was aware that the nation faced serious issues as it relates to literacy at all levels of society.

"In recent times, we have seen where even at the level of adult literacy we are having major problems with persons accessing employment," he said.

Holness said there was also a direct link between illiteracy and violence in schools as many students are often frustrated at the fact that they are unable to understand and access what is being taught.

"This is by virtue of them just simply not being able to read and write," he said.

The Education Transformation Team (ETT), an arm of the Ministry of Education, which was established to guide implementation of the 2004 Task Force recommendations, will be spearheading the literacy drive.

Laurel Brent-Harris, national literacy coordinator with the ETT, said one of the main objectives is to raise the literacy levels of primary and secondary school students to at least 85 per cent reading at or above the grade four level by 2015.

She said this new literacy thrust was also a response to the 2004 Task Force on Education Reform which found that students, particularly in non-traditional secondary schools, continued to perform at unacceptable levels in all national tests, as well as the underachievement of boys.

Tackling the challenge

The ETT, in tackling the literacy challenge, has put in place a management structure comprising a national literacy coordinator and eight regional literacy coordinators with responsibility for programme oversight and for stakeholders' consultations. In addition, there are 50 literacy specialists who have been deployed to 212 of the most challenged schools.

There are also school-based literacy coordinators or reading specialists in all schools.

Holness further said that the Ministry of Education would have several intervention programmes implemented at each grade level at the primary stage to ensure that students achieved mastery of the Grade Four Literacy Test, which is the internationally accepted standard for threshold literacy.

He said this test would become a national test "almost a certification of literacy" for all students at the primary level before they are allowed to move on to secondary school.

"What we are hoping to achieve is 100 per cent literacy coming out of the primary school system," said the minister.

Holness said it is a matter of national importance that all children leaving the primary school system are literate and numerate, as Jamaica continues to lag behind its Caribbean neighbours in adult literacy standards.

"Regional neighbours Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados adult literacy rates are in the high 90s ours remain in the low 80s," he said.