Peter EspeutOVER MORE than a decade I have been writing this column I have been consistent in pointing out the rot in our national education system, which seems not to be able to do the job - either at the primary or secondary level. At least, not the job we want it to do. But it might be doing the job it was set up in 1834 to do. The last thing the members of the Jamaica House of Assembly wanted the education system to do was to liberate the minds of their soon-to-be-emancipated slaves, and prepare them to leave the plantation to better themselves.
"Emancipation has removed the whip", said the Rev. John Sterling in the House during the debate on the Education Act; "We must now control their minds through education". They created an education system focused not on academic skills like reading but on "manual training" so that graduates would be prepared to work for them on their plantations.
PERFORMANCE OF JAMAICAN HIGH SCHOOLS
The dismal performance of Jamaican high school students at the CXC Examinations, scientifically presented recently, is but the natural and logical result of the education system created in 1834. Jamaica had schools before 1834 - not for the children of slaves, but for the children of the planters, bookkeepers and overseers. These were private preparatory schools run by Miss So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so, often in their homes. The parents paid school fees, and no subsidy or subvention was received from the colonial government, which had no Department of Education. The schools created after 1834 by the colonial state were not for the children of the planters, but for the children of their former slaves, and one would have had to be joking to suggest that the quality of the education offered should be similar or equal. Jamaica's class system - woven finely into the fabric of every institution of Jamaican society - does not allow that sort of talk. For high school, the planters sent their children to one of the schools endowed by various Trusts (like Titchfield, Munro or Hampton), or to England. No Jamaican government - colonial or under self-government - built (what we call in Jamaica "traditional") high schools until in my lifetime when the Morant Bay High School and the St. Mary High School were built in 1961. It was the Church - various Christian denominations - that entered the education system and established high schools along with Trusts formed from bequests from philanthropic persons.
It would not be untrue to say that the Jamaican government did not really see secondary education as its business. Only those who could afford to pay could send their children to high school. In the late 1950s the government decided to participate in secondary education by giving grants to some of these schools, and in return, to choose 95% of the school intake through a Common Entrance Examination (CEE). For the first time, the children of the Jamaican poor could go to High School, with the possibility of passing GCE "O" and "A" Level exams and going on to university. But there were still too few schools at the secondary level.
GLORIFIED ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
The government of the 1960s built several dozen post-primary schools to broaden the franchise, but instead of building "Traditional High Schools" or something similar, they built "Junior Secondary Schools", which stopped at Grade 10 and so did not prepare children for GCE "O" Level exams. These really were glorified elementary schools, ensuring that only those from Traditional High Schools had educational mobility. Those "failing" the CEE were sent to Junior Secondary Schools. The old House of Assembly would have approved.
NEW EXAMINATION
In the 1970s the government added a Grade 11, but instead of upgrading the infrastructure and the staff to allow CEE "passes" to go there to finally take the GCE, they created a new examination - the Secondary School Certificate - specially for these students, now in schools called "New Secondary Schools". What this did was to consciously create "second class education" at the secondary level, completing what the government of the 1960s began. In the 1980s the government began to rename the New Secondary Schools as "Comprehensive Schools" and "Technical Schools", usually with no additional plant, equipment or upgraded staff; new name, but same old school. In the 1990s the government renamed them "High Schools", and they began to take the CXC Examinations, which had replaced the GCE.
SURPRISES
It is no surprise that the best that any of these schools could score is "D". What surprises me is the surprise that some are showing. The more realistic are showing surprise that a few of the newly renamed schools have done as well as "D". The government of the 1970s (as a temporary measure, they said, until more schools could be built), introduced the two-shift system in secondary schools so that more children could go to a secondary school. What this did was to reduce from six-and-a-half hours to about five hours the time secondary students spend learning in school, which drags down all students in two-shift schools.
We must come out of the two-shift system as quickly as possible. Clearly name-changes are not enough. What else do we need to do to offer the same quality of education right across the secondary system? The first thing is that we must want to; I believe that the Ministry of Education (and principals and teachers) have accepted that non-Traditional High Schools will offer a second-class education. I was Board Chairman for one of these Junior Secondary turned New Secondary turned Comprehensive turned High Schools during its transition, and I was appalled that the name changes could be just handed down to us with not one new science or language laboratory, or the requirement that the qualifications of the teachers should be upgraded. After the name change to Comprehensive we began to get students who had "passed" the CEE, but they had the same low scores of the students we got before, when we got those who "failed".
What is preventing good quality primary and secondary education across the board in Jamaica? Who will bell the school cat? The teachers blame the Ministry and the parents and the students (everyone but themselves). The Ministry is parked with former JTA activists. I was a high school teacher for five years, and I know that when the rubber hits the road, when you have students in front of you, the Ministry does not matter, the parents do not matter; it is between you and the students. The teacher that is competent and conscientious, will inspire their students and do the job.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.
