Peter Espeut THE WHOLE country must be scandalised at the report of a father mercilessly beating his daughter because she did not get a place at a traditional high school in the recent Grade Six Achievement Test. His frustration is understandable: the life chances of thousands of Jamaicans are often determined by the type of secondary school they attend. But why take it out on the child? Frustrated parents and children must learn to direct their frustration in the appropriate direction.
Let's face it: we have a serious problem with secondary education in Jamaica. We don't have enough of it, and much of what we have was designed to be of poor quality. After my column of two weeks ago, I was asked whether I really believed that there was a definite plan after Independence to keep people backward through education, and I am resolute in my belief that there was. Let me repeat my argument a little more fulsomely.
At Independence in 1962, we had 41 traditional high schools and 8 senior schools. Only at high school could one take the Cambridge GCE Examinations, which would allow entrance into higher education, but space in those 41 schools was limited. At the same time, we had the Grade 6 students of the 672 All-Age Schools and 21 Junior Schools competing to enter the traditional high schools.
Just a few years before Independence, all the High Schools in Jamaica were privately owned by churches and trusts. Only about 2,000 new places were available each year, and access was determined by the ability to pay. In 1962 the poor had access only to the 21 junior schools (up to Grade 6) and 672 elementary schools (up to Grade 9) with little hope of moving up. In 1957 the government of the day took over the secondary education system by offering to cover the costs of running the 41 high schools, in return for the right to determine who was admitted. Clearly there were not enough high school places for everyone, and so the government was faced with two immediate problems: how to choose the 2,000 who would benefit from secondary education, and how to increase the number who would benefit.
The first problem was addressed by the introduction of a competitive examination called the Common Entrance Examination (CEE), where selection would be on the basis of performance, and not wealth. Here for the first time, rich and poor would compete in the same examination for entrance into the same schools, and cracks began to appear in Jamaica's rigid class- and colour-conscious social structure. In 1959, 24,819 students sat the CEE and 1,916 students were placed in the 41 high schools. Those who failed to get a place in a high school went to the senior schools or remained in all-age schools until Grade 9 when their school careers would come to an end.
No one could say that this was good enough. The obvious solution to the problem was to build new high schools so that more students could benefit from high school. On the day when you have enough high school places for everyone, we would no longer need the CEE and we would have provided high school education for all.
But after 20 years of Independence under both the JLP and the PNP, that approach was not followed. Only two new high schools were built (one was Charlemont), while four private high schools were brought into the grant-in-aid system (Ardenne, Campion, DeCarteret and Munro). A new type of secondary school the Comprehensive High School was created, and five were built. At the same time, enrolment in the traditional high schools was increased by enlarging their capacity and by the introduction of a two-shift system. Through these means, the number of CEE places more than quadrupled over the period to 8,853 still only one-third of the applicants of 20 years before.
The scandal as far as I am concerned is that in that first 20 years after Independence both the JLP and PNP governments borrowed money to build secondary schools that were not high schools! In the 1960s, junior secondary schools were built, and in the 1970s, new secondary schools were built; entry to each was gained by failing the CEE! In all, 70 of these secondary schools were built, the graduates of which took the Secondary School Certificate Examination not recognised by anyone except the police and the army! Imagine that we had built 70 high schools to increase the numbers placed by the CEE, to take the GCE and have the opportunity of social and educational mobility, to become entrepreneurs to grow our economy! Instead the governments took the decision to build schools of lower quality! What could have been in the minds of those policymakers, many of whom are still around today? Shameful, I say!
In the meantime, the number of all-age schools had decreased to 504 and the number of primary (junior) schools had increased from 21 to 282. Enrolled in Grade 6 of these two types of school combined were 52,142 students, of whom only 38,106 sat the CEE, competing for 8,853 places. Can you imagine the absolute waste of human capital these figures represent?
We have rebaptized some of these secondary schools and called them "Comprehensive Schools" and even "High Schools" without the slightest addition to the school plant (not even a science laboratory) or any adjustment to the teaching staff. In doing so, the government has devalued the meaning of "high school". In truth, the government operates high schools of variable quality from excellent to very poor.
And we have abolished the CEE and replaced it with the "Grade Six Achievement Test" (GSAT). Black dog and monkey!
Where is the plan to build more traditional high schools, to provide high-quality high school education for all Jamaicans?
And so when a father beats his daughter for not being placed in a traditional high school, you can understand the frustration that would cause it, even though his actions were inexcusable. But his ire was misdirected; instead he should blame the PNP and JLP for creating the grossly unequal education system we have in Jamaica, which wastes human capital and is keeping the country poor. And is perpetuating social and economic inequality in our fair land. Shameful!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive Director of an environment and development NGO.
