The Youth Development Programme of the YMCA in Kingston, Jamaica, has been successful in delivering remedial and continuing education to at-risk boys who have dropped out of the formal school system. What is particularly remarkable about this two-year programme is the very low dropout rate and very high rate of completion among boys who had dropped out of the formal school system. The clear implication is that the YMCA programme has been able to address the needs and aspirations of 12- to 14-year-old boys in ways that the schools have not.

This paper positions children's literature within the context of the Jamaican language situation and explores ways of effectively involving children's literature in an integrated curriculum.

The editor of the Jamaica Journal of Education and Teachers' Aid, in an issue published in August 1909, included the story of a certain squire who had violent objections to anyone invading his pew. On one occasion, at the conclusion of a service, he went to the vicar and complained bitterly of a stranger who had unknowingly intruded. It was a very large pew and the only occupants had been the squire and the unwelcome visitor.

This third issue of the Institute of Education Annual addresses themes related to the curriculum, the school context, and gender. The first article is an adaptation of a paper presented by Ruby King at the Forum on Education: Violence in Our Schools, sponsored by the School of Education, UWI, Mona. In examining the role of the school and society in combating violence, King begins with a historical look at violence in Jamaican society at the time when the first elementary schools were established.

During the last decade several Caribbean countries have focused much of their resources and energy on developing national curricula. Jamaica has been prominent among them with the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) project, which developed curricula first for five subjects, and later for four more subjects, among them music. More recently the development of a primary music curriculum and the piloting of a syllabus in music by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) have added significantly to the number of innovations that school music faces.

Most teacher education programmes in the Caribbean and other parts of the world continue to face the challenge of training teachers who are often not equipped with the reading comprehension strategies necessary for the academic pursuits of preservice training. The majority of these strategies relate to metacomprehension, that is, awareness of, and control over, the requirements of "reading to learn” tasks.

 
A growing body of research exists on preservice teachers' experiences in reading methodology courses in North America (e.g., Allen and Piersma 1995; Hayden 1993/94). However, their counterparts in the Caribbean in general and Jamaica in particular have not enjoyed similar attention. Lack of local investment in research may be because children of wealthy Jamaicans usually attend the more prestigious private schools, generally from kindergarten through grade 12, then resort to countries of the North for their higher education (Goulbourne 1988. 

The University of the West Indies (UWI) was established 1948 as the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) to serve the then British colonies of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, British Guy ana (now Guyana), British Honduras (now Belize), the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

This paper reviews the teacher development programmes and projects implemented in the Caribbean in the 1990s in light of the challenges faced by the countries of the region to reform their education systems. Particular attention is paid to innovations in teacher education and training, continuing professional development of teachers, teacher supervision, and teacher evaluation.

The call to integrate or incorporate technology education into the curriculum of primary schools in the Caribbean has continued over the past few years. Recently, the frequency of this call has been increasing as the influence and scope of the information and technology era unfold. Many Caribbean governments have recognized the importance of incorporating this aspect of education into the schools' curriculum and are constantly calling on educators and curriculum developers in the region to ensure that the schools' curricula are adjusted to reflect this important educational mandate.