D.K. Duncan THE THORNY issue of "Access to Education" has surfaced just a few weeks prior to the September/ October 2002 General Election.
It was Prime Minister Michael Manley who on May 2, 1973, announced, "all school fees in secondary schools in Jamaica will be abolished and supplied by the Government-" Speaking in the Budget Debate, he stated "-we are also abolishing the fees of Jamaican children at the UWI"
It was a People's National Party (PNP) administration under Chief Minister Norman Manley and with Florizel Glasspole as Minister of Education in 1997 (as Phillip Sherlock records) that "gave their children (of the black majority) greater access to secondary education." This access created great upset in some of the traditional schools as well as among some privileged parents.
Prior to 1957, unrestricted access (no fees) to secondary education was limited to less than thirty "scholarship winners" from primary (elementary) schools across the parishes. It is this knowledge of part of our history of "access to education" that is at the heart of the present thorny "Free Education" Issue. The PNP had come to be seen as the Education Party. That hegemony is being challenged.
The stage of full access to primary, secondary and tertiary education free education prevailed until February, 1986, when the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government under Prime Minister Edward Seaga, introduced a CESS on fees for students at the tertiary level. This action prompted significant protests by students, University Lecturers, the PNP and its Youth Arm among others.
The then Opposition under PNP President Michael Manley promised to remove the CESS if the Party was re-elected. The PNP was re-elected in 1989. The CESS has not been removed after thirteen years. Instead the Party's philosophy was further modified to accommodate a return to "partial access" to secondary education by the introduction of a cost-sharing programme in Secondary schools. The 1988 election slogan of "We put people first" arising from the philosophy of Egalitarianism was put to the test.
For the Leader of the Opposition to be proclaiming, with justification, the plan of the JLP to re-introduce free secondary education is a bitter pill for the PNP to swallow.
The leadership of the PNP's Youth Organisation was among the first to display a knee-jerk reaction to Mr. Seaga's recent statements. Using some of the same rationale of the forces opposed to universal access to education in 1973, the youth leaders declared that the country cannot afford it. This despite the youth arm's intention to "capture the moods and the imagination of the young voters by explaining the party's achievements in the past." (Gleaner, July 24/02)
To accomplish this task, they would do well to take heed of the Prime Minister's words in the text prepared for his Budget Presentation on Tuesday April, 30, 2000. The Third President of the PNP, PJ Patterson stated: "My Party and Government have the distinction of being heirs to a noble tradition of visionary leadership. From our Founder and National Hero, the Rt. Hon. Norman Manley, through to our illustrious late Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Michael Manley."
What was the vision of the first two PNP Presidents of "Access to Education"? As early as January 1939, some three months after the PNP was launched, the First President, Norman Manley said: "Education must be at the centre and heart of every change" Twenty years later as Chief Minister, he stated in his 1958 Budget Speech: "you are making a mockery of trying to create a nation in Jamaica if you do not provide... the basic education for every child..." He concluded: "...if the choice is between saving the money and spending it that way, it must be spent that way."
Fifteen years later, in 1973, the Second Party President, Prime Minister Michael Manley writing in his first book "The Politics of Change" had this to say: "-every developing society must aim at free, compulsory universal education as its national priority." He further asserted, "Government today must not only reflect the politics which have been described as the art of the possible. It must reflect also the pursuit of the impossible"
Within two months, he announced in Parliament the Government's intention to provide free education at the secondary and tertiary levels. This was already in place at the primary level. In that Budget Presentation of May, 1973, he explained: "I say, I know the taxes are hard-(but I) think that that is helping to start a revolution in education to lift it from where the torch bearers of the past have brought it to now."
For Michael Manley in an Independent Jamaica the question of Access to Education should never be one of affordability. It was one of principle. In this regard he asserted "-there can be no compromise about this if one is serious about egalitarianism."
The Youth Group G2K had prepared for the JLP as far back as November 2000 a document called "A vision of hope". Presented at a public seminar, it stated in the section on Education:
"The JLP believes that education is a right, not a privilege and that every child deserves to have the opportunity to attend school up to the secondary level. A JLP Government will end the cost-sharing programme and ensure that all children are able to attend school up to secondary level at no cost."
The vacillation of the PNP and its Youth Arm as well as their inability to come to grips with this issue much earlier has added more thorns to this already thorny issue. They may want to reflect on the words of Michael Manley in the same book, "Politics of Change" written during the course of his first year as Prime Minister:
"It takes great clarity of vision and consistency of purpose to hold to policies in the face of the articulate position through which small but vocal groups try to divert us from our purpose-" One Love, One heart.
Former PNP General Secretary and Government Minister in the PNP administration of the 1970's, Dr. Duncan - a dental surgeon, recently established "The D.K. Duncan Political Institute". Email:dktruth@hotmail.com
