THE EDITOR, Sir:
ON MARCH 7, 2004, an article written by Opposition Leader Edward Seaga was published in The Sunday Gleaner. 'The education system has failed its exams' was its heading and just below followed statistics revealing the percentage of students who failed to obtain a passing grade on last year's math and English CXC exams, the effects of those and preceding failures and what can be done to rectify this problem.
In response to this article and detailed below are what are perceived to be the factors that have attributed to this dilemma.
Firstly, many of our teachers today are not skilled enough to properly educate our young minds. We are living in a new age where knowledge is key and children are expected to access and assimilate great quantities of information. Teachers, therefore, are expected to know this information and how to communicate it to children, or at least how to expose them to it. Sadly, many of our island's educators are still at the educational level they were 20/30 years ago and have not sought advanced training. A child who does not know the full content of a discipline cannot acquire an 'A' or 'B' grade.
Secondly, today's educational system has suffered greatly from the infirmity called inadequate funding. If addressed earlier, creative funding solutions may have been implemented by the Government but over the years it has turned a blind/indifferent eye to this problem. Now, too many teachers and students are forced to work in dilapidated classrooms and schools that lack the basic infrastructure much more the materials needed for teaching and learning. These same teachers are expected to provide quality instruction and these same students are expected to perform at a high level of quality.
Thirdly, an overcrowded classroom is not conducive to learning. One of the Ministry of Education's regulations is that classes should have a ratio of 35 students to one teacher. This is not the case in too many of our nation's schools. They are overcrowded with 40, 50, 60, 70 and even 80 students to one teacher. As a result, teachers are unable to address the students' collective needs much more those of the individual. Many students then, especially those with special needs, slip silently through the system - unnoticed, unskilled and illiterate.
Fourthly, many teachers have failed to identify their students with special needs. When this happens, these students do not work at their full potential. Some teachers have fallen short because they have not been trained to recognise these needs. Others fall short because they ignore the 'dunce-heads' and work with the brighter and brightest. Other teachers fall short because their classrooms are so overcrowded that each student can only benefit from a few seconds at the teacher's desk during the term and two minutes more of his/her attention at end-of-year report time.
Fifthly, a weak curriculum one that limits the understanding of a study has attributed to our system's failure. In Jamaica, many of our curriculum texts lack adequate information needed to complete a study. As aforementioned, students that don't have the right tools to complete the job cannot do so.
In conclusion, unskilled teachers; inadequate funding; overcrowded classrooms and a failure to redress the needs of 'special' students has led to Mr. Seaga's and our vision of the existing high rate of pregnancy among young females, frustrated and unproductive young men and women, and a semi-literate society.
We are, etc.,
EIGHT TEACHERS
(NAMES WITHHELD)
