The Career Advancement Programme (CAP), launched by the Jamaican Ministry of Education (MOE) in January 2010, is a major government policy initiative whose primary aim is to address the problem of inadequate preparation of school leavers for the workforce and further education. This problem was identified over 40 years ago, and a number of policy initiatives have been implemented by successive Jamaican governments to address it. However, it continues to exist.

This paper explores the pitfalls, successes, and challenges of the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) intervention, which was anchored by a robust framework outlined in the 1990 CARICOM Regional Strategy for TVET document. Specifically, the paper examines the three critical sections of the CARICOM document to show the achievements of TVET, or lack thereof, since the implementation of the Regional Strategy for TVET.

This article explores the main initiatives by the Jamaican government since 2005 to address thefunding of the public education system as it implements the education transformation programme. First, it looks at the emphasis placed on a sector-wide approach to address the funding of the transformation process. The article then discusses the options available to Jamaica and other developing countries with similar backgrounds and goals to fund major efforts to transform their education systems.

The article addresses the funding of higher education in a period when there is increased pressure on governments to reduce their funding support to higher education, and on universities to become more creative in expanding their own sources of funding. The article demonstrates that universities have and will continue to benefit from the combined private and public approaches to the funding of higher education, with cost sharing being the philosophical base of this model.

The study seeks to determine school constituents’ rating of the leadership dimensions of high-performing principals based on school types. A questionnaire developed surrounding nine dimensions was distributed to school constituents from 125 schools across Jamaica which included classroom teacher, grade coordinator, senior teacher, head of department, vice principal, board chairmanship, PTA president and education officer. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) generated four dimensions or factors that conceptualized leadership performance in effective principals.