THE EDITOR, Sir:
IT IS beyond reason that anyone would deride public financing of tertiary education and in the same breath posit government job placement of those who pay for their education! I question Dr. Ralph Thompson's facts which form the basis of his new vision for education in Jamaica.
Every jurisdiction has teachers of different categories and classification; obviously Dr. Thompson thinks Jamaica should be the exception. Above all, I take issue with his contemptuous description of "trained teachers...[as] holders of "as few as four CXCs" + a Teachers College". May I inform this gentleman that in my possession is what is universally accepted as the "standard North American reference" for Caribbean academic assessment. This book in speaking about our earliest Teachers' Diploma - those of the 1950/60, describes Jamaican Teachers as having completed a "program of training comparable to any BEd program in the USA". That, Dr Thompson, reads, the least qualified Jamaican teacher has training equal to first degree holders of the US. Read that to mean, Jamaican Teachers with as low as grade eight/second form + an Old Teachers Diploma (or certificate) is academically equivalent to any teacher in the US with a Bachelor of Education Degree.
Lest Dr. Ralph Thompson and his kind have a heart attack, I will not explain the true value of a new Teachers' Diploma! The said publication mentioned above carries information which shows that one GCE/CXC subject is the equivalent of not one, but TWO grade 12 subjects in any US High School. So that the holder of a "mere" three GCE/CXC subjects in Jamaica has the equivalent of a US High School Diploma. Further, these GCE/CXC subjects are academically superior to the US High School subjects that holders should receive advance university credits for them (in the US). The problem with education in Jamaica is ignorance about our worth and our belief that things Jamaican are of less value.
Dr. Thompson ought to listen to himself and examine his utterances carefully for when in his obvious hierarchy of the teaching profession he places those he calls "pre-trained graduates" above Trained teachers the alarm should go off in his head. I would love to see a judge, place someone without legal training above a trained lawyer and pay them more to boot!
Teacher certification in Jamaica has always been stigmatised, degraded and undervalued and this is one reason I know, with time, this current hoopla about the new degree by distance learning will come to nought just as the others before it.
I am, etc.,
RHONA ALLEN
ralallen@ucalgary.ca
Via Go-Jamaica
