Through the ages, storytellers have known that well-told ‘complicated stories’ are, first and foremost, a source of entertainment for people of all ages. However, research suggests that, even as we are entertained by fiction, we benefit from listening to or reading fiction in other ways as well. Fiction illuminates ‘imagined-worlds,’ and socially constructed perspectives of identity and culture as it guides readers into critiquing portrayals of self and others, minimizing the caricaturing of the ‘Other’ (Clifford & Kalyanpur, 2011).

Although the Language Education Policy 2001 (LEP) developed by the ministry responsible for education in Jamaica has not passed through all the channels for official adoption, it represents the clearest indication yet of an articulated national policy on language education by the government of Jamaica. The aim of the draft policy is to provide a framework for dealing with language concerns in educational institutions with a view to improving language and literacy proficiency.

Basic reading skills need to be acquired early in a target language to allow students to make full use of educational opportunities provided in all their subjects. Grades 1 to 3 is a critical time as those reading below the grade 4 level, internationally, are classified as non-readers, with grade 1 being a crucial link. Phonetic skills are an important component of reading skills.

This paper takes up the Jamaican Creole/Standard English (JC/SE) debates and argues that they often reproduce false binaries between Creole and English and the oral and written. I map out some of their terrain by sampling editorials and letters from local newspapers, the Gleaner and the Observer, and offer up a brief history of the various positions of linguists and educators on the SE/JC question.

This double issue of the Journal of Education and Development in The Caribbean (JEDIC) honours Jossett Lewis‐Smikle, lecturer in Literacy Studies in the School of Education, University of the West Indies, Mona, who passed away in March 2013. Many in our university community and beyond will know of her unstinting commitment to literacy achievement in Jamaica through her teaching, research, curriculum development and community work.

Language Education in the Caribbean: Selected Articles by Dennis Craig is a carefully selected collection of the writings of the late Dennis Craig (1929–2004). Edited by Jeannete Allsopp and Zellynne Jennings, the book contains eight of Craig’s “most representative articles” with a focus on language education in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The book is a rich resource for its intended audience of language teachers, creolists, practitioners and researchers in the field of Caribbean language education.

To understand the significance of the online launch of this issue of the Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean (JEDIC), one must understand its beginnings. Created by the late Professor Dennis Craig and Professor Emerita Zellynne Jennings-Craig, JEDIC was birthed out of a need to produce scholarly research by and for the Caribbean people, pertaining to both education and development. The first issue, published in June 1997 in Guyana, produced four articles, one book review and one thesis abstract.

Technical and vocational education has become a strong focus area for Caribbean countries as they seek to advance their social and economic status in the globally competitive market. Given this context, schools in the Caribbean offer technical and vocational education and training (TVET) subjects to students from various examining bodies. This paper looks at how schools in Jamaica are doing in TVET in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and the leadership and management principles and practices used in administering TVET in selected top performing schools.

National and international large-scale literacy assessments play an indelible role in impacting educational policy and curriculum across the globe. In fact, the value attached to these measures persists regardless of questions raised about the influence of the nature of such tests, characteristics and requirements of test items, and the ways in which demographic characteristics such as English learner status, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and disability impact student literacy performance.

A recent report of a workshop on educational curriculum and remediation held by the Eastern Caribbean Education Reform Project (ECERP), provides an interesting backdrop to language education in the Caribbean and incidentally supports the rationale for this book.