JLP'S NEWEST POLITICAL FOOTBALL- OUR CHILDRENS EDUCATION

 

This week the Jamaican Government through its Ministry of Education, announced the expansion of the secondary schooling period from five to seven years. This to take effect immediately and effectively slapping a permanent ban on graduation at the end of fifth form or grade 11 years.

Let me hasten to point out that I am no expert on Jamaica's education policy but having done my time in the system and by virtue of my contact with my past student association, I do have some ideas of the function or dysfunctions inherent in our education system. Such involvement tells me that this JLP Administration is playing politics with the lives of our children by forcing an unworkable education policy on the population. It appears that such a policy has benefitted from very little thinking and even less participation from the stakeholders in education, namely, parents, educators and principals, and the students themselves.   

My own assessment is that there is a building critical mass that is approaching as unemployment numbers are on the rise, especially at the youth level. This has not been helped by the Covid-19 pandemic which has ravaged the economy for the better part of the last two years, shrinking the economy by more than 30 percent and while contributing to a ballooning of the unemployment numbers. Add to that is the galloping crime numbers with murders for the third year running set to top 1400 per year. Security Minister Chang is on record ascribing increased crime statistics to increased gang numbers swelled (his arguments) by rising numbers of unattached youths.

Each year, the secondary school system disgorges some 35,000 youth onto the streets, two-third of whom will have no more than one or two CSEC subject passes at a grade 3 or 4 level. This means that these young adults are qualified for nothing at all. Let me not mention the 15 percent of secondary schools whose school population are barely functionally literate at the end of five years.  

To suggest that keeping these kids in school compulsorily over two additional years will solve the problem is a dog that will not bark. Jamaica has had a dysfunctional education system prior to Independence and all that has happened over the last 60 years amounts to tinkering without addressing the real problems. This additional two year extended stay in school is a direct attempt at stifling the unemployment numbers and adding to the unattached population. What will happen when, after these initial two years we are still in the same position? What the government is attempting to do is to buy some time.

A country's education policy must align with its social and economic development policy. After all, it is not bauxite and tourism that are our best resources, it is our people. In the circumstances, a sound educational development policy starts with elementary and primary education. That is the foundation on which the education of our people has to be built. If the kids are inadequately prepared at this stage they will carry this malformation into their secondary years and will be just as useless by the end of secondary school as they were when they left primary school.

From where I sit, the proposed policy begs a number of other questions. Firstly, how will the school system accommodate holding 35,000 to 70, 000 additional kids over the next two years? These seats cannot magically be created overnight without some investment in expanding physical capacity. How will this be funded.

Secondly, what curricula will be pursued in these institutions at this additional grade levels? Certainly, this retained quadrant will not all be pursuing Cape, as already, most are incapable of matriculating into that level of pedagogy given the existing academic deficiencies. Has that curriculum been agreed, and if so, who is going to teach it?

Thirdly, there is the question of teachers. Where will the additional numbers come from and how will they be paid. This is not helped when teachers currently on the roll are yet to receive pay for September 2021. Where will the monies come from?

My fourth question relates to the issue of choice. Are we saying that a government can arbitrarily insert itself into the decision-making process for parents and their children in determining when and how a child is educated as they approach adulthood? Not every child who leaves school at grade 11 needs a college education. We pretend to be a democracy and in such a situation there is the freedom to choose ones approach. I feel as if we are approaching a dystopian stage of existence as Jamaicans sit powerless as the train-wreck that this policy represents, unfolds in 'real time.'

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