An “aggressive” effort to improve literacy in the schools is already reaping significant success, Ministry of Educational Transformation officials report.
Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw said yesterday that “by December 2026, after this intervention, our students should be able to read at least two levels above where they are reading”.
This was after Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman shared that “we set a very clear objective that every child must be able to read by the age of seven, and we have determined that we are definitely on track”.
The two officials were answering questions in the Well of the House of Assembly on day one of the Appropriation Bill, 2026 debate containing the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the coming financial year.
Government backbencher Tyra Trotman, Member of Parliament for St Michael Central, asked: “With the ministry requesting $289 849 114 for non-statutory expenditure for the upcoming financial year, what measurable literacy and numeracy benchmarks has the ministry established to ensure value for money and demonstrate improvement in foundational learning?”
Blackman responded, stating: “I am happy to report to Parliament that the ministry has embarked on an aggressive . . . literacy initiative to help close a number of gaps that have existed, but, equally, I am happy to report that those gaps are beginning to close given the interventions that we’ve been making over the last number of years.”
Archer-Bradshaw reported on the progress made.
“We have indeed been working assiduously to close the gap when it comes to reading and, to date, we have reached 6 421 students, we have 587 teachers trained, and 82 schools covered,” she said.
“So this represents 97 per cent of the target group. We’ve also been seeing an improvement in children’s vowel mastery. We’ve seen a 46 per cent improvement in terms of consonant mastery – 73.3 per cent.
“There were students who were unable to sound any vowels, now that number has reduced by 3.4 per cent.”
She added: “By December 2026 we are seeking to close that gap significantly. So all children by age seven who have the ability to read should be able to read by age seven because of the intensive efforts that we are putting into this programme.”
Janelle Little, education officer in the nursery-primary section at the ministry, noted that there were five teachers “who act as literacy coaches, and they go to schools to assist teachers in the targeted training”.
“In addition to that, we will be building out that cohort so that we have more literacy coaches coming on board to work with our teachers in a targeted, individualised way. We want to make sure that the children who are challenged can also have the individual interventions as well,” she said.
“We are also going to ensure that our students are assessed at the end of every term.”
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