THE EDITOR, Sir:I AM amazed at the surprise about the condition of the Jamaican education system. It seems that we must have had some idea of this outcome when we were shipping our teachers, nurses and other educated persons overseas to the higher bidders.
After the first of the major overseas recruiting drives of our teachers fell into place a couple years ago, there were those in Government who suggested that we should be grateful that our teachers and the country would be the subject of a staffing drive from a first world country or two. There was even talk that we should look into the concept of increasing teacher training to accommodate this attrition level, because these teachers and other educated professionals would be sending back billions of dollars in remittances.
Now that the chickens have come home to roost, we are here bemoaninig the condition of the "dunce factor". My recommendation to those who control the purse strings that they should be looking to invest a significant amount of money into our basic and elementary school system (which I hear is being done), as well as make every effort to train and retrain our top class teachers. It says a lot that our best and brightest would rather live as second class citizens in a cold place than working with their own on their own turf. America became a developed country because they nurtured their best and brightest and believed in their children, by investing in their education.
Lastly I must comment on our state of mind. It is a truism that in the beginning there was the word. This concept goes beyond Genesis to the core of our existence. If we took a look around us, it would be clear that everything man made started with an idea. An idea has no form nor substance, yet it can change the very place on which you stand. It is this idea that we as a nation lack in having a vision of and for ourselves as a nation. Our leaders cannot be blamed for this, they are one and the same as us.
Perhaps among the five million or so Jamaicans in Jamaica and the world, there can be one with the bold vision that will transform the place in the world that is one of the most striking anywhere, and the coincidental collection of people who are the most giving and creative collective I know of in this time, having given the world a Bob Marley, and some of the best sportsmen in the modern world, not to mention statesmen and professionals.
I am, etc.,
HUGH M. DUNBAR
hmd-energy@erols.com
6010 Boulevard East
West New York, New Jersey
Via Go-Jamaica
