Delroy ChuckTHE DELIVERY of a good education, whether measured by strong academic performance or sound character building, has gone awfully awry. The publication of the study by Dr. Dennis Minott, which ranks the performance of Jamaican High Schools in the CXC examinations, merely confirms the deterioration and rot overtaking the whole education system. Then, again, apart from the outstanding and brilliant public relations machinery of the government and its agencies that has successfully conned the Jamaican people to believe we are on the right track, what else is going right? When will we wake up, smell the coffee, acknowledge the failures and weaknesses, everywhere, and get ready to repair defects and restore high standards?
Education has long been in crisis. We cover the cracks and ignore the poor annual performance with the hope and expectation that things will mysteriously get better. Sadly, everything is getting worse. For more than 10 years, Jamaica has consistently ranked at the bottom of CXC results, with only Guyana, I believe, doing worse. To crucify the messenger, Dr. Minott, or disingenuosly provide a multitude of excuses, or show some minor error that would have improved the ranking from F to E or C minus to C plus, as so many principals have done, simply confirms Dr. Minott's conclusion that the schools lack leadership and vision.
SATISFIED WITH MEDIOCRITY
Whereas we should purposefully aim for excellence in education, we are satisfied with mediocrity or justify failure with excuses. Until we are guided by quality performance, education will remain in crisis. To be sure, the poor academic performance is not solely the fault of teachers and the schools. Education benefits from a shared combination of interests and suffers immeasurably when students have no interest in learning. From an early age, if parents fail to instil in their children the love of learning, the task of the teachers and schools becomes almost impossible.
No amount of effort on the part of teachers and schools can successfully overcome the poor learning environment of homes. Just how many parents take an interest in homework, school reports, parent-teacher association, teachers' day, or the general welfare of the schools their children attend? From my school days at Kingston College, or as a teacher for two years at Holy Childhood High School, I noticed that the students who did well were usually those who got the support, attention and care of doting and concerned parents. Even as a father, attending the occasional parent-teacher meeting, I noticed that the parents who usually attend are the ones whose children are doing well, and the parents of poor students are rarely in attendance. Again, check out the students who get good examination results or scholarships, even the Jamaica Rhodes Scholarship, and one will find they had the full support of even one parent or committed guardian.
If I am right, and I know I am, we need to solve the crisis in education in our homes. That is where the leadership and vision of principals could easily focus, as they start to repair the rot and decline in academic standards. I can only hope that in this great debate on the crisis in our education, we can spend some time measuring the importance of the parental input. I strongly support the ranking of schools based on academic performance, even if further fine-tuning or improvement in the system is needed.
LEADERS MUST SPEAK OUT
The leadership of the schools must start to speak out frankly and openly on the multiplicity of factors that are affecting the education of our children. If the supply of children from the basic schools, elementary and primary schools are below acceptable levels, inform the public and let us know the poor quality students that the high schools receive, which means that remedial work is necessary even before these students begin high school.
Perhaps, the circle should be completed whereby we could rank the primary and preparatory schools' performance in the GSAT examinations, and further publish the academic performance of the students taking these exams to see to which high schools they are admitted. My understanding is that if the results of the GSAT examinations were published, it would be a national disgrace and partly explain the abysmal performance in so many high schools. What is quite urgent, and the nation demands it, is a full assessment of the crisis in education. Ultimately, the nation demands and deserves a giant leap towards excellence in education.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He may be contacted by e-mail at Delchuck@hotmail.com.
