IT IS obvious from the expenditure Budget presented to Parliament that the government, ignoring a rising chorus of expert opinion, is not only continuing to starve early childhood education of badly needed funding but has surrendered to political expediency by providing hefty increases to tertiary education. This will allow the University of the West Indies (UWI) to continue subsidising student fees to the tune of some 80 per cent while parents of poor children going to Community Basic Schools have to pay the full costs for what, in many cases, is a sub-standard education.
The total education budget for 2004/05 is $29.3 billion, up less than 2.5 per cent over the $28.5 billion allocation last year. To make matters worse, the $29.3 billion allocation is only 8.9 per cent of the total budget, thus putting in doubt the so-called historic agreement with the Opposition that this year's education budget would be 11 per cent or $36.3 billion a $7 billion breach of faith.
Wentworth Gabbidon, president of the Jamaica Teachers Association, has bemoaned the fact that within the education budget itself, the early childhood segment gets a disrespectful $1.36 billion or 4.6 per cent of the total education budget. On the other hand, tertiary education gets ($5.57 billion or 19 per cent of the budget and, on the face of it, the UWI has been granted a 150 per cent increase to $4 billion. The amount of the increase may be confused by a change in the accounting of the allocation which, previously consisted of cash and bonds, discountable at a bank, but the UWI should tell the public what the true increase is, and the government needs to tell the public why early childhood education has been short-changed again.
We are left to wonder what considerations of equity can account for skewing limited resources in such an unjust way. Could it be that the 'Old Boys Club' of UWI graduates, so prevalent in the society, has unfairly influenced a budget allocation that should have been made in the interest of the nation, not one enclave therein, as important as it may be. Even so, had Government honoured its promise to the Opposition and had a substantial part of the extra $7 billion which this would have provided been assigned to early childhood education, there might be some hope of improvement in the overall education system and some confidence that the setting up of an Early Childhood Commission was not another empty gesture. As it is, we seem doomed to continue poor results in the CXC exams.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
