UNESCO - EFA Global Monitoring Report

Box 4.13. Change from Within: a Jamaican initiative

An initiative has been taken as part of the University of the West Indies’ Change from Within programme, aimed at promoting boys’ achievement in Jamaican schools. In a unique experiment, a group of primary- and secondary-school principals were encouraged to work together to improve their school environments. They faced a set of common problems all underpinned by the failure of Jamaican boys to succeed in education. Some of these challenges were boys’ lack of self-esteem, a growing problem of violence and indiscipline in schools, a problem of masculine identities moving boys away from valuing academic performance towards other compensatory and negative types of behaviour, and the reduction in job opportunities after students graduate. Different schools responded in different ways, but some of the key strategies included: - building on existing strengths: one primary school used its land to encourage boys to plant crops and improve their literacy through environmental learning; - enlisting parental support for school activities by meeting some of their needs: one school, for example, was able to offer parents some employment; - engaging with the community: schools drew on local talents, inviting storytellers and dancers into the school; -using the arts as a means of building confidence, school pride, communication and motivation; - running school guidance programmes to identify and solve personal problems.





Source: Sewell et al. (2003).

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