Delroy ChuckIF YOU have not yet read Dr. Ralph Thompson's contribution, 'Education on the ropes', in Sunday's Gleaner, you should do so. It exposes the dreadful state of most high schools and demonstrates, again, if we did not already know that our education system is in crisis. The stark reality is that our schools and the whole society have failed and, consequently, our children are ill prepared to meet the challenges of our globalised world.
Let's start with the good news. Some schools Campion, Immaculate, Ardenne and a few others are doing quite well. Their students can compete with the best in the Caribbean and the world. Their pass rates in most subjects are excellent. Virtually all their students graduate with five or more subjects. They provide the cream of the crop for A levels and university matriculation. Indeed, graduates from these institutions move on to UWI, Oxford and Cambridge, and the American Ivy League universities and do as well or better than other students. In fact, a few students in most high schools are getting excellent grades in spite of the failures around. So, it cannot be that our children are intellectually deficient or incapable of achieving high academic grades.
ABYSMAL PASS RATES
When the pass rates for English and Mathematics are so abysmal, it is not the fault of the students; it is the fault of the system. Dr. Thompson, Edward Seaga, and many others have identified Early Childhood Education as the major weakness in the scheme of things, yet enough is not being done to correct this glaring defect. By age 6, a child who is illiterate and innumerate is an education liability and unlikely to recover and benefit significantly from any further schooling. Unless these young minds are enlightened and stimulated, they are lost forever to the challenges of even simple academic tests.
A fundamental problem is what value do we place on education. In middle class homes, parents are keen to pay and expend the best efforts to provide the opportunity for their children to get a decent education, and from an early age. From the cradle, the minds are stimulated and by age 3 the youngsters start prep schools and engage in mentally stimulating activities. These are the children who move through high schools with little difficulty and usually attend the best high schools together. It is the children from the inner cities and poor homes who struggle against the odds and rarely overcome the initial deficiencies.
ATTENDANCE
Just recently, I visited an inner city community in my constituency of NE St. Andrew and inquired of attendance at a basic school. I was informed that attendance had dropped from 60 to 80 per day to under 30, as the parents could not afford the fees. What were the fees? You could not guess. It was a mere $1,500 per term, which works out at about $500 per month, yet the majority of parents in that community could not afford it. I begged the supervisor to get all the children to return to school, as I would pay for the remainder of the term. Amazingly, throughout the inner cities, that is the experience of poor families. Children cannot attend schools through dire poverty and, even when they do, attendance is haphazard and not conducive to academic progress.
What can we expect of these children when they reach high schools? Economic hardship is wrecking our education system. The government cannot afford to fund education and parents are finding it increasingly difficult to send their children to school regularly. Actually, many schools are no longer places of learning, where character is shaped and transformed, where the country's limited resources are invested in our young, and where our youngsters prepare to contribute to the nation, they are holding areas where the worst emerge and the rottenness of the society spreads and infects even the best.
Sadly, no easy solution is on the horizon. Shifting funds from university to Early Childhood Education is not the answer. Right now, I would urge that every dollar from the CHASE Fund be put into Early Childhood Education. As much as we love sports, arts, etc. unless we educate the young, the future of our country will be bleak. It is time the government make education the top priority, as it promised in the election campaign of 1989, but as Dr. Thompson's contribution has shown is just another of the failed promises.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at Delchuck@Hotmail.Com.
