Glenda Simms, Contributor
IN THE 2003 State of the World's Children, UNICEF focused on the right of all the world's children to participate in both the private and the public spheres.
The nature of such participation will depend on a number of factors, including age and developmental skills, and will vary from society to society.
In spite of the variations, UNICEF argues that "participation may include a wide range of activities-seeking information; expressing the desire to learn even at a very young age; forming views; expressing ideas; taking part in activities and processes; being informed and consulted in decision-making; initiating ideas; processes proposals and projects; analysing situations and making choices; respecting others and being treated with dignity". The report further went on to say that if such participation is to be meaningful the children must be guaranteed "information, support and favourable conditions", in order for countries to be successful in the Priority Areas for Action in "A world Fit for Children".
One of the priority areas is the provision of quality education. It is in the context of Jamaica's commitment and obligation to provide quality education for all our children that the article written by Teino Evans in the October 26, 2003 edition of The Sunday Gleaner must be analysed.
Evans reports that some basic school teachers are in the process of trying to get the requisite skills in English, in order to "diffuse criticism that they should not be teaching". It was further reported that a private tutor noted that based on the performances of some of these persons, "most of them were not at the level they should be as teachers". The tutor went on to elaborate on this sorry state of affairs by saying "when you stop to think that these are teachers, you can't help but wonder what is it that they are imparting to students". Of course, Evans' article also delineated the measures and remedies to this problem that the leaders and decision makers in he Ministry of Education have in mind.
Quoting a senior education officer, she left us with the concluding statement, "Right now there is a lot of emphasis on early childhood to improve the quality so that we can have a better product at the end of the day".
A TRAGEDY
The tragedy of this situation is that it is the children of the most disadvantaged backgrounds that have no choice but to attend the basic schools that are staffed by persons with serious language and social deficits. These children do not stand a chance. The majority of their parents are as limited in their language skills as the teachers in these basic schools.
While it is true that some of the basic school teachers can be even more caring, warm and loving than some of the parents, the fact still remains that such children need a highly enriched environment in which their cognitive skills can be nurtured. To this end they need language enriched environments, not environments of obvious language deficits.
The quality education that these children require cannot be left to chance. It is not enough for educational leaders to acknowledge that there is a problem. They need to remove from all basic schools any teacher who does not have the requisite skills to guide the healthy developmental path of the poorest and neediest children in our society.
It is rather frustrating to listen to the excuses that are given for the state of affairs in so many of the basic schools. This frustration sets in because all those who have gone through any worthwhile teacher training programme would have been taught that early childhood education is of great importance in the long-term development of an individual. And yet, too many of those who have been trained continue to administer a system that continues to deny so many poor children the opportunity to acquire a solid educational background by the time they are nine years old.
We know that without this background our children will find it more and more difficult to excel at the primary and high school levels (traditional or new).
Developmental Psychologists have researched and articulated the major planks that are important to children's normal learning patterns. In general, they all agree that "a key to a child's ability to function in the world of formal education is his/her ability to deal with the world's language system - particularly, the ability to read and communicate".
If this is a basic truth, then the Jamaican basic school children who are exposed to poor language models, faulty sentence structures, grammatical mistakes and a non-stimulating cognitive developmental pattern, are in great trouble.
This situation cannot wait for the time when the current crop of basic school teachers "are upgraded to the level where they can use the English Language". The time has come for the authorities to carry out a serious evaluation of the skills of all basic school teachers and remove all those who are not equipped to move our young children beyond their limitations and the limitations of the parents. Poor children deserve the best education because the socio-economic and political "playing fields" are not level.
HEAD START
In the United States of America, 'Head Start' was conceived to serve the child developmental needs of pre-school children (birth to age five) specifically those from low income families.
It was recognised that the developmental needs of such children were not being met in their homes. Even with the best intentions, the majority of poor parents do not have the wherewithal to maximise their children's development prior to them entering the formal school system.
Interventions, such as Head Start and other early childhood programmes must be focused on compensatory approaches in order to assist children to develop in a well rounded way.
If we are to ensure a future in which the generations to come have a country in which they can be safe from violence, from economic limitations and from the awful social conditions that now texture the lives of so many people, then every one of our Jamaican children must be guaranteed a solid foundation in early childhood experiences - both formal and informal.
It is universally accepted that the first six years of a child's life set the blueprint for the childs future development on the physical, social, emotional, spiritual and cognitive levels.
While it is true that a child's parents are the first teachers, we are confronted in Jamaica with the reality that far too many of the little boys and girls are now being packed into taxis and minibuses too early in the morning to get to the basic schools that are being run by individuals, churches, and community centres, on a very tight budget and with limited resources. Also far too many of these children have semi-literate or illiterate mothers who have little or no parenting skills. Many quickly usher children out doors loaded down with overweight backpacks in which there is a bit of pocket money and no lunch. This is the extent of their involvement in their children's formal process. Some of them rarely, if ever, turn up to parent-teachers meetings.
Therefore, by having low functioning and semi literate persons in some of our basic schools we are making a conscious effort to sacrifice some of our children until we can get the system up to a better standard. Where does the society get its mandate to decide who should and should not get the best teachers? Whose children must be made sacrificial lambs?
POOR CHILDREN GET POOR EDUCATION
Again, it must be emphasised that early childhood education requires that children have the best teachers and the kind of learning environment that optimises all the developmental skills. In many cases it has been demonstrated that poor children reap the greatest benefit from high quality early education programmes. Yet, in our Jamaican reality, it is the poorest children who are exposed to some of the worst learning and teaching environments.
Many poor children are not fortunate enough to have parents who are equipped with the requisite language and other intellectual skills to assist in their development. This is very evident in many communities, especially in rural Jamaica. Many of these children are products of a debilitating cycle of poverty. They have grandparents who were too poor to do much more than to survive in very limited material circumstances.
These grandparents gave birth to children who did not do much better than the previous generation. Both generations received very little formal education in the same school rooms that remain as stark as they have always been in spite of any changes in rural life.
We need to intervene in this rigid blueprint that seems to predispose the poor to reproduce themselves so that the colonial class structure can be perpetuated in the name of 'underdevelopment'.
This writer realises that the majority of basic school teachers are women and that women are over-represented amongst the poor and the unemployed. However, I cannot endorse the presence of semi-literate persons in the classrooms that must offer hope to poor children whose parents cannot afford the 'big ticket prep schools'.
Dr. Glenda Simms is the executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.
