Edward Seaga, Leader of Opposition
THE CALL for a State of Emergency is timely, but the emergency is the education system more so than the state of crime.
This may be hard to believe but statistics will establish the case for emergency treatment for education.
Begin with the cost of sending a child to school an informal survey of 20 parents in the inner city communities sets out the details and total as illustrated (see table).
These costs are the same, more or less, for primary and secondary schools. For this reason they do not include school fees and extra lessons which, though very substantial, vary widely.
AFFORDABILITY
It goes without saying that only a small section of the population can afford this level of expenditure for schooling a child. For two children in the average family, the cost would be twice as much, which is even more prohibitive.
This unaffordability is borne out by the Survey of Living Conditions (SLC), 2001, which outlines levels of consumption expenditure of different categories.
Expenditure levels for the population in 20 per cent groupings (quintiles) are:
Poorest (20%) $24,126
Third poorest (20%) $58,696
Richest (20%) $178,679
Jamaica $82,248
If the mean overall expenditure of all Jamaicans is $82,248 then affordability of $80,705 for school costs is out of the question since schooling is only one of the costs to meet from the overall expenditure.
But many thousands of children do go to school whether their parents can afford it or not. This is only possible by omitting much of the expenditure required for proper schooling.
The Survey of Living Conditions tells us where the cuts take place:
Books 20%
Lunch 25%
Uniforms 32%
Transportation 90%
The shortfall for lower-level consumption families is far more than for upper level.
By comparison with upper level expenditure households, children from lower-level households get:
One-third the amount of books of their upper-level counterparts.
One-quarter the amount of lunch
One-third the quantity of uniforms;
Somewhat more for transportation.
To this, add the disparity in extra lessons costs where expenditure on children from poorer households is one-fifth of richer homes.
The additional costs for school fees put an extra burden on poor families varying from $4,000 to $13,000 and more.
Imagine the bitter-sweet result for the parent of a poor child from the inner city who is allocated a place in one of the "brand" name high schools as a result of a good GSAT performance.
It is a chance of a lifetime, every mother's and father's dream. But the cost is $12,000-$15,000 more per term. This involves untold sacrifices. It should be easy to understand now the sensitivity of parents to the burden of school fees and the strident calls for removal.
DISMAL STORY
Because of the disparity of real expenditure with the ideal of what should be spent to properly provide for a good education, the CXC results tell a dismal story of extraordinary failure.
On an overall basis: 25.3 per cent of the age cohort in school pass in English while 16.7 per cent pass in Math.
These may be disastrous results but for students from poor households the results are unbelievably worse.
The results of the secondary schools attended by poor children (comprehensive, new secondary, technical, etc.) the CXC exam results are:
9.2 per cent pass in English
4.7 per cent pass in Math.
How much worse can the picture get? Much worse!
From another perspective, 70 per cent of the students in secondary schools do not obtain even one pass. Unbelievable!
These figures speak to the real emergency and crisis which the education system faces. Indeed, the system as it exists provides a sound education for 20 per cent of the population, some education for 10 per cent and virtually no education for 70 per cent, a maintenance of the same elite pre-colonial and post-emancipation system.
What exists for the great majority of students (70 per cent), is not an education system. It is a cruel hoax. For poor students, it provides schools which serve as day care centres for students until time to go home.
The reason is easy to see. The Ministry of Education despite a budget of more than $20 billion, spends 95 per cent on wages and salaries leaving five per cent or $1 billion to do all the repairs and fundings of other needs of the system. On this basis, it hardly serves a purpose.
The result of the limited budgetary expenditure on education over the years is a catastrophe.
Despite a need for 15 per cent of the budget to be allocated to education, the amount provided has been 10 per cent on the average for years, which leaves little or nothing after paying wages and salaries.
Other CARICOM islands spend much more on education than Jamaica. They spend roughly 15 per cent of their budget and, on an individual basis, far more (see table).
As a result, at least 20 per cent of the secondary student graduates in Jamaica are illiterate and 50 per cent are untrained and ill-equipped for employment. These jobless students help to increase the horde of young people on the corners in the inner city or the gathering on shop steps in the rural areas, or roam the streets in idleness.
No wonder teenage pregnancy is high! No wonder our crime rate is one of the highest in the world!
Jamaica needs an education revolution to focus national attention. I called for one in the 2000-01 Budget debate.
12-POINT PROPOSAL
The revolution involves 12 steps.
1) Begin with increasing budget expenditure on education from 10 per cent to 15 per cent; an amendment to the constitution must be passed to require that 15 per cent of the budget must be taken off the top of the revenues, as is the case with debt service which is provided for constitutionally.
After the deduction for debt and education, the remainder can be allocated to other needs.
In the 2000-01 Budget debate, I proposed a plan for financing the additional funding by using available long-term (30 years) pension funds and other long-term savings to fund a tax-free Education Revolution Bond.
That proposal ended up being used to finance Highway 2000. A variation is still possible today.
2) Use additional funds to begin from beginning; take over basic school education;
Provide proper facilities for existing basic schools which are in woeful conditions;
Build 70 new basic schools;
Recruit staff for 70 new basic schools; upgrade teachers in 1,700 existing schools to government infant school level;
Promote full enrolment in basic schools. Present figures are fictitious because of switching;
Provide proper education for all infants, three to five years.
This is the only way to eliminate the poor start in education.
Remember Justin Hines and the Dominoes: "What gone bad a morning can't come good a evening time".
3) Press for compulsory attendance in primary schools.
4) Extend the period of schooling from 16 to 18 years for all students in secondary schools.
Currently, enrolment in secondary schools is :
15-16 years 84.7%
16-18 years 43%
Hence half the student population leave at 16 years, after CXC. Sixteen years old is too young for graduation and the world of work.
(5) Provide for:
Retrieval of textbooks issued to students of primary schools at the end of year for recycling next year. Use a three-year cycle;
Re-introduction of comprehensive textbook lending programme for secondary schools as was done with UK funding in 1988;
(6) Improve and expand the school-feeding programme. Current programme shows high participation as indicated by the SLC is primary, 64 per cent and secondary, 70-80 per cent.
Yet the expenditure on lunch is the highest single cost of expenditure in schooling, one third of total. Something is wrong!
(7) Review the placement programme for GSAT students to ensure that schools in poorer areas are not stripped of good quality students for the secondary level;
(8) Provide a compulsory homework hour after classes to ensure that homework is done, under supervision and good conditions. Conditions at home are detrimental to study poor lighting, over-crowding, distractions. Without a good homework programme the benefits of classes cannot be consolidated.
(9) Review the allocation of resources to secondary schools in a manner to compensate for deficiencies so as to provide equal education for all. With more equal levels, preferences will be reduced and students can attend schools in their zone of residence without loss of quality education. This will reduce transportation costs which is a substantial component of cost;
(10) Upgrade teachers to required degree levels.
(11) Introduce performance incentives for teachers; special incentives for inner city and deep rural schools. Insist on full accountability for performance in schools.
(12) Remove tuition fees which are adding further to the burden of costs. Government to replace tuition fees with grants to schools. This will eliminate the confusion between entitlements through P.A.T.H. and cost-sharing and will be a major source of relief to parents.
These proposals are intended to:
Reduce costs of schooling to parents.
Increase participation effectively with better provision for books, lunch and transportation;
Raise standards by upgrading teachers and offering incentives;
Eliminate illiteracy and poor education. The bottom line is that the state must assume the cost of education for all students to 18 years because the great majority of parents cannot afford to provide the costs for a reasonable education for their children. The figures presented here confirm this.
The extra costs to achieve this would be (1997 figures):
Recurrent $3 billion
Capital $2 billion
These figures would have to be updated particularly to include replacement of tuition fees.
The new levels of funding would raise the budgeted expenditure from 10 per cent to 15 per cent, revolutionising education for all.
We face a new world today, one which is intolerant of the ignorance which traps our children in the shell of an old world by lack of a proper base in education.
The brave new world for Jamaicans to face now is to fully join the world of educated people, masters of the fundamentals and eager to learn. This is an inescapable need.
If we can't help this generation fully, then we must help the next to lift itself up and over the shoulders of their parents by acquiring knowledge their parents never had. Conquer this world of ignorance and we conquer poverty, joblessness and crime. It holds the key to all our problems.
The Education Revolution must be launched now.
