Peter Espeut SOME THINGS are just indefensible, but people will still try. Over the last few weeks a number of persons (in my case, years) have been putting forward evidence that Jamaica's education system is substandard, producing generally low levels of literacy and low levels of educational achievement.
I have argued that much of the blame is to be placed at the feet of the JLP and PNP policymakers who have created the system we now have by positive decision. Taking the first 25 years of Independence (to include both parties) the various governments decided to build only two traditional high schools (children have to pass the Common Entrance Examination to enter) while building 70 junior secondary and new secondary schools (students have to fail the CEE to enter). This is a scandal of the highest proportions, for it has meant that the progress of thousands of Jamaicans has been intentionally stunted by successive JLP and PNP governments. Why? To protect the agricultural labour force, and to offer foreign investors cheap labour.
I am at a loss as to why no journalist or talk show host has rushed to the present Minister of Education and past members of the Cabinets of both PNP and JLP governments asking them why they agreed to this backward step? I find that most of our journalists do not deserve the title "independent" because they are so partisan.
The immediate response of the government to the charges that they have created a substandard education system, is to point out that three of our Jamaican "A" Level students have placed THIRD in the world in their various subjects, suggesting that we are not so bad after all. What a deception!
The Trinidad Express of Friday, August 31, 2002 (check the Internet) reports that in a country half our size, 17 students have come either first, second or third in the world in the Cambridge GCE "A" Level Examinations. Six Trinidadians came first in the world (in Sociology, Biology, Physics, Literature, Economics and Geography), five came second in the world (Sociology, Biology, Further Mathematics, Geography and Spanish), and six came third in the world (Sociology, Biology, Chemistry, Computing, Business Studies and Literature). And we are boasting about three students coming THIRD in the world! Our levels of educational achievement are unnecessarily low!
Note, Trinidad got first, second and third in the world in both Sociology and Biology, first and second in the world in Geography, and first and third in the world in Literature. In terms of population, if Trinidad has 17 in the top three, and our education system was on par with Trinidad, we should have 36 in the top three! But we have only three, suggesting that Trinidad's education system is eleven times better than ours using this criterion alone.
This data supports the case that various Jamaican governments since Independence have created a substandard education system. Instead of admitting this and suggesting how to create a good education system, government apologists have been rushing to argue that our system is not so bad after all. The signal they are sending is that we must not expect any changes in this area any time soon, because nothing much is wrong.
Professor Errol Miller, former president of the Jamaica Teachers Association, is another person who recently felt it necessary to come out arguing that our schools are not as bad as people are saying. He argues that the illiteracy rate is higher among older Jamaicans than younger, suggesting that recent graduates of Jamaican schools are more literate, and therefore that the schools are producing less illiterates.
What contradicts this is a government policy document, the 2000 Education Green Paper "Education: The Way Upward" which sets the following critical target: by August 2002, 55% of all students who were enrolled in Primary Grade 1 in September 1997 would demonstrate full mastery in literacy at the Grade 6 level. A further 35% will achieve that status by 2004. [I wonder whether they achieved their target?] My point is that if the Ministry sets a goal that just over half the Grade 6 students will be able to read at the expected level, this suggests that the real level for which statistics would be available to Professor Miller is much below that! Professor Miller's claim is therefore not credible. [I hope his claim that the Electoral Office is now ready for the coming General Election has more foundation!]
I notice the large number of advertisements for non-traditional educational institutions on all the media. It reminds me of Haiti, where the government education system is so inadequate that few people send their children there; this has created the demand for sound education, and large numbers of private educational institutions have emerged. Jamaica has always had private kindergarten and preparatory schools where the middle and upper classes could send their children, but middle class children would still go to government high schools. Now the private education sector is expanding, suggesting a national ground-swell of dissatisfaction with the government education system.
I still consider it inappropriate and somewhat degrading for both parties to be arguing over whether government-provided education should be free or not. The people want only good quality education, and that is why so many are prepared to pay for private education. I am still waiting for a party to promise good quality education in the government system. I am not surprised. This would be such a major policy shift that neither party can bring itself to even promise it in this silly season!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is Executive Director of an Environment and Development NGO.
