The shift system was introduced into the Jamaican education system in September 1972. It was established with the main aims being to provide accommodation for more students, to avoid overcrowding, and to enable a teacher/pupil ratio of one to 35.

Broadly speaking, the main objective of providing needed school spaces for the students has been realised, but many argued that in the process quality was sacrificed for quantity.

Critics have pointed to shorter teaching hours, which play havoc with the official curriculum, the virtual non-existent of clubs and societies, the security of students and fatigue, and frustration among staff and students as areas of great concern in the system.

Recently, a series of symposia on the subject put on by the ministries of education, national security and health, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and USAID found that the shift system places the lives of students at risk. A study by Dr Austin Ezenne of the University of the West Indies while pointing to the achievement of the national objective of finding spaces for students, also spoke to the constriction of teaching time and the tense atmosphere engendered by the system in the teaching/learning environment.

The National Education Inspectorate is reported to have asked for its removal in a report on its effect on teaching and learning at Papine High School in St Andrew.

Several educators, some of them served as president of the Jamaica Teachers' Assocaton (JTA) including Ray Howell, Nadine Molloy Young and Paul Adams have also advocated an early abolition of the shift system.

This vociferous call by educators and others prompted the Ministry of Education, under the former Jamaica Labour Party government to propose a timetable for its abolition by 2013. Adams of the JTA has sounded the warning that it would be impossible to achieve the education's millenium goals of 2030 with the shift system still intact.

negative effects

This 2013 goal seems impossible to achieve at this time given the poor state of the nation's economy, and the number of new schools which would have to be built.

Hence, it would make good sense for education stakeholders to work together to lessen the negative effects of this system. For example, better supervision of students in holding areas is a case in point.

Granted, there are some Herculean tasks which will prove difficult to surmount. These include the kind of care needed for a grade-one child on the morning shift who has to wait for his older sibling in grade six on the afternoon shift. Also, the clear and present danger of having students on the morning shift leave their homes in the dark to attend school.

The principals, in particular, have been doing well under trying circumstances with some of them running as many as three shifts in a single school day.

In whichever manner we look at it, stakeholders must continue to dialogue as they seek to dispense with this 40-year-old monster which has come to be known as the shift system.

Questions, comments, observations? You can email me at elgin1225@yahoo.co.uk

Recently a series of symposia on the subject put on by the ministries of education, national security and health, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and USAID found that the shift system places the lives of students at risk.