Delroy Chuck A COUNTRY'S BEST investment is to empower its people. From the birth of the nation, and even moreso for the future, Jamaica's strength, or weakness, depended and will depend on how we empower and invest in our people. Nothing is more important in the process of empowerment than to provide the people with good, quality education. Indeed, most of Jamaica's problems stem from the poor quality of thinking and information gathering, especially by those who control the levers of power. If we can truly invest in our people, develop their minds and improve their thinking ability, Jamaica can be a better place.
It is really sad, perhaps shameful, that we need to engage in a sterile debate over the funding of education. Education is not only a privilege; it is a needed investment for nation building. Nations around the world are looking for more ways and means to pump money and resources into education, skills training, and human development. They understand, as we have yet to understand, that a nation's wealth and well-being can be found in the minds of its people instead of the mines of the land.
In the modern era, Jamaica stands alone in demanding of secondary students that they pay, even part of the costs, to attend school. Cost-sharing, introduced by the PNP government in 1992, but fully implemented in 1994, is a disgrace and shame on any government, for which it should be rightfully condemned. It is even more disgraceful to hear sensible people, many of them educated free, argue in favour of cost-sharing and, stupidly, urging that those who can pay should.
Alas, cost-sharing is just another form of taxation or revenue gathering. Parents who can afford it are the very ones who would have contributed already to the pool of revenue available for government expenditure. Why shouldn't they benefit or is it that they should be taxed even more - if it is the latter then do so, but do not shift the taxation to the schools. In truth, cost-sharing is nothing more or less than an admission by the state that it has failed to collect enough revenue or to use the revenue wisely.
Then again, under the present administration, is it not a fact that every area of government is under-funded and in need of more resources? Daily, it is a crying shame to see how poor people are treated in medical centres around the country, and now, poor people are required to make even greater contribution to access needed medical care and attention. And the same is true everywhere, the executive agency is another measure to charge people more for government services. The Highway 2000 project is the first step to charge motorists tolls to drive on the roads and, under this government, it won't be long before tolls are required on most of the roads, and even at stoplights!
I have always found cost-sharing to be repugnant and a burden, especially on poor people. When I reflect on my upbringing, it is likely that I would be a shopkeeper, or a labourer, but for the opportunity to access secondary education at Kingston College in the sixties. I give much thanks and praises to Edwin Allen who assisted my mother with yearly grants of thirty pounds to ensure that I could continue in secondary school. At UWI, again I could not have attended without a teacher's scholarship in 1969, and without the Rhodes scholarship I could not have studied law or acquired postgraduate training. My experience, instincts, and understanding of the importance of education strengthened my belief and convinced me that cost-sharing was wrong, very wrong. It was easy for me therefore when I became Spokesman on Education for the JLP in 1996 to argue against cost-sharing and for its removal, and that has been the JLP's policy and position since then. Indeed, from its inception, the JLP has argued against cost-sharing.
Shockingly, over the past months, with the JLP repeatedly proposing and promising the removal of cost-sharing, the PNP spokespersons have defended and supported cost-sharing and argued forcefully for its long-term retention, the main argument being that the country could not afford free, or state-funded, education. Now, with the tide moving against the government, and the people buying into the policy of secondary education being a social right and a significant part of government's investment in its people, the PNP spokespersons have started to change tune.
First, Dr. Paul Robertson, the perennial pipeline man, intimated that cost-sharing would be removed, when the economy improves, which means like his promises of the investments in the pipeline, it will never happen. Now, the Prime Minister in a desperate bid to stem the wave of support for free education has belatedly proposed paying fees for some examination, reduction of cost-sharing and ultimately removal of it in 2005. In truth, under a PNP administration, in which the economy always struggles to stay afloat and ways and means are found to tax the people, there is no likelihood of cost-sharing being removed. It is now time however to understand that education is the best investment a country can make and if we think it is costly then heaven knows lack of it, or ignorance, is several times more costly. The question should never therefore be affordability; a country simply has to afford the investment in education. Indeed, when we consider that our children will be required to pay off the mammoth debt that this generation has incurred then the very least we should do is to equip them to bear the burden. More importantly, in the information age of the 21st Century, human skills and development will make the difference in determining whether we can effectively compete with the rest of the world, and if we fail to educate our people, we would have failed to prepare them for the challenges of the era of globalisation.
Admittedly, the whole education system needs an overhaul. I have said and written before, that in its present form the system discovers and produces a few education diamonds but overall it fails to find and polish the many talents amongst the majority of children. The recent examination results in A levels and CXC confirm what we already know that our children can compete with the best in the world. However, for reasons well known, we are educating less than five per cent of our children to world standard while the overwhelming majority are deprived of quality education.
It is truly time therefore for us to have an educational system that leaves no child behind and one in which we can challenge our children to be the best in the world. That will only happen if we see education as a long-term investment that will reap dividends not immediately but in the future. As a nation, preparing to compete with the best, we need creative measures, effective strategies and sound leadership to find the money and the political will to definitely make education a priority, as it is the surest and best means to empower our people.
Delroy Chuck is an
attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@ hotmail.com.
