Roy Bodden Minister of Education

School Effectiveness and School Improvement: Foundations for Quality Education for All Young People.

Recent trends in research suggests that links between school improvement and school effectiveness are important to secure meaningful and lasting change in education. In the Cayman Islands, a school inspection model has been developed and implemented to act both as a tool for accountability and school effectiveness, and as a force for school improvement. Our inspection system has helped to establish standards and expectations, and to identify strengths and key areas for development. Two key priorities arising are: 1) to match the challenges highlighted by inspection with an equally high level of support for our schools; 2) to support changes at the level of individual schools with systemic changes.

Our new draft Education and Training Bill will support such developments. It will establish, for example, a School Improvement Unit within our Education Department. A National Educational Leadership Programme has been introduced for serving and aspiring principals. We aim to provide, by 2005, local initial and in-service teacher training facilities.

A major new initiative ITALIC (Improving Teaching and Learning in the Cayman Islands) focuses on using technology to improve teaching and learning in our schools. It has three distinct components: training of teachers; adoption of software and other web-based solutions to raise the standards of taught materials and establish a bank of high quality lesson-plans; and improving hardware and access to the web through wired or wireless technology in every classroom.

My Ministry places great emphasis on linking education to the long-term development of human resources on the Cayman Islands. Therefore, a parallel initiative to the ITALIC programme, (ITALIC TOO), will be introduced in 2004. It will incorporate various projects designed to develop a “world class” workforce in the Cayman Islands, including an educational strategy for technical and vocational education at secondary and post-secondary levels, and the introduction of work ethics courses. It will be developed and implemented in partnership with other government ministries and private sector and community groups.