Covid-Special ed link?

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — The Ministry of Education is currently rolling out new special education spaces as Jamaica faces a surge in demand for special education services, with one official pointing to an alarming level in the Corporate Area, seemingly fuelled by school-aged children whose births coincide with epidemics or pandemics.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer on the sidelines of the official opening of a primary school block at Savanna-la-Mar Inclusive Academy in Westmoreland last Thursday, assistant chief education officer in the Special Education Unit of the ministry, Dionne Gayle-Smart, highlighted the growing crisis.

“We are seeing a steady increase in the amount of students who require special education — students who are now being diagnosed with being on the autistic spectrum, for example, students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This is islandwide, but yes, in Westmoreland, we are seeing an increase in the amount of applications that we get at our unit for placement for school,” disclosed Gayle-Smart, adding, “If you look at it nationally, and then I know for Kingston and St Andrew, it is at an alarming level.”

The senior officer gave a historical trend, suggesting the spikes seem to follow major public health crises that have hit the island over the last decade.

“What we are seeing — and I’m no expert here — but I think somehow we could align it to Chik-V [chikungunya virus] and Zika, and then, ultimately, Covid[-19]. After those three epidemics/pandemics, we are seeing an increase in the incidence of students now presenting on the [autism] spectrum, for example,” said Gayle-Smart.

Jamaica recorded its maiden epidemic with chikungunya in 2014, a Zika virus outbreak followed in 2016, and the country was hit with the Covid pandemic in 2020.

According to the assistant chief education officer, there has been an approximately 25 per cent increase in students seeking special education services following the chikungunya virus and Zika virus outbreaks. However, according to her, the post-Covid-19 surge has been even more dramatic, jumping by an estimated 50 to 60 per cent.

“You can do the time stamp. We are seeing them now, and we call them the ‘Covid babies’ because they are — when you go back to 2020 — they are six-year-olds now, the five-year-olds… they are the ones who are now coming to us for services for special education,” shared Gayle-Smart.

As a means of addressing the inrush, the ministry is rolling out its Inclusive Spaces Programme, an initiative aimed at expanding capacity by repurposing existing infrastructure.

“I’m glad you’re asking that, because this is one of my projects — where we are now looking at establishing additional spaces for students islandwide,” Gayle-Smart said.

The initiative targets primary schools that previously operated as “primary and junior high” institutions. As a result of the junior high concept being phased out, the spaces left vacant are being retrofitted and refurbished into modern special education units.

“Those are the sections that we’re now targeting to retrofit and to refurbish so they will become inclusive spaces,” explained Gayle-Smart.

She told the Sunday Observer that two such institutions — Constant Spring Primary and John Mills Primary in St Andrew — will open their inclusive space doors to the public in September.

“Others are coming up as early as January for Region Six, which is St Catherine, because those are the areas with the high demand. The urban areas tend to have a higher incidence of students,” said Gayle-Smart.

While institutions within urban areas can move forward, Region Four — which includes St James, Hanover, and Westmoreland — presents a unique set of challenges, which Gayle-Smart described as “a little bit ticklish”.

“Some of those spaces that I referred to before are in the ‘hills’, if you will, or the mountains — far from the urban area. So, transportation might be an issue,” argued Gayle-Smart.

To address this, the ministry is exploring twinning the inclusive spaces concept with the National Rural School Bus Programme to provide transportation for rural students.

However, according to Gayle-Smart, no physical space has yet been identified for Region Four.

“This is because of the challenge of the location…And then, in the urban area right here in Savanna-la-Mar or in Montego Bay, the schools that are in the town are full. They are using all their spaces. So we now have to also look at building new structures, and we’re looking at that as well; we’re open to that,” she said.

Besides, Gayle-Smart said the education ministry is currently looking at an inter-ministerial collaboration with the Ministry of Health to identify and plan for developmental delays early.

“As we look at partnering with our other ministries, the Ministry of Health will play an important part because what we want to happen is a seamless progression for our students with special needs. So let us — and I want to give you an example so it’s easily understood — what we want the Ministry of Health to do is to provide us with the information, the incidence as it relates to birth rate, how many children are being born showing some of the early signs of having a special need…What that can do for us, if we get that data, we can then plan; we can be proactive and plan,” charged Gayle-Smart.

“We had COVID — let us say 2020 to 2021 — if the Ministry of Health could have sent over information to say, ‘We have this amount of babies born who we suspect will have some issues because they didn’t meet all their milestones or the Apgar test,’ things like that, we now would be able to plan ahead and say, ‘Okay, those children will become school age in another three or four years,’ [and] we could plan spaces. You’ll find where the inter-sectoral conversation now becomes — the inter-ministerial conversation, if you will — becomes of utmost importance,” added Gayle-Smart.

The “alarming” surge in Jamaica appears to mirror a global trend with school systems worldwide struggling to deal with the unprecedented special education demands. In the United States alone, recent nationwide federal data indicate that more than 8.2 million students currently qualify for special education services, according to (ET) Magazine. A June 2025 BBC report indicated that, in England, a record one in five pupils now receives special education support. According to the report, there’s been a 44 per cent increase in pupils in England needing support for special educational needs since 2016.

Assistant chief education officer in the Special Education Unit of the Ministry of Education, Dionne Gayle-Smart, speaking during an interview with the Jamaica Observer on the sidelines of the official opening of a primary school block at the Savanna-la-Mar Inclusive Academy in Westmoreland on Thursday. (Photo: Anthony Lewis)