Edward Seaga
ONE OF the most common judgements parents make is to determine if the money they spend on the education of their children is worthwhile. This involves evaluating, as best as they can, the school reports and other tangible evidence of progress.
It may come as a shock that the majority of Jamaican parents do not understand how to interpret school reports. They are unaware of the value of grades. 'A', 'B', and 'C' etc. mean little. Percentage scores are only somewhat more understandable. All this is because of parents with low levels of
literacy or inadequate experience with schooling. This incapacity will diminish as new parents or caregivers who, in more recent times have had greater experience of schooling themselves, will be in a better position to interpret school grades and make better understood decisions.
Believe it or not, some countries evaluating the cost and benefit of their education systems appear to be in the same position as hapless parents. Generally, it can be expected that governments believe that education is of great benefit to their national economies and expenditure on education is definitely worthwhile. Not to be educated means a loss of potential economic benefit for the national economy. But a study published in Economics Bulletin, February 2006, carried out by Brian Francis and Sunday Iyare of the Department of Economics, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, is revealing on this point.
The study was carried out on data available for Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica covering the 35-year period, 1964-1998. The conclusion is derived from comparing expenditure per capita on education with gross national income per capita, which is used as a proxy used by the World Bank for economic development. There are some findings from this comparison:
(1) "Improving the level of education appears to have failed to stimulate development in these three countries, a finding that is possibly reflecting the belief that the educational systems in the Caribbean have not been adequately developed and tailored towards the implementation of curriculums along the lines of technical and scientific subjects needed for industrial growth and development;"
FAILURE TO PROVIDE
CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENTS
(2) "To a large extent, these countries either failed to provide conducive environments for boosting production or promoting atmospheres for production (falling) far behind those in other countries that are considered internationally competitive;"
(3) "The unemployment rates in the three countries suggest that improvements in the quality and level of education have not been focused on allowing labour to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the chronological progress."
The central theme of these
findings is that more expenditure on education by itself is not stimulating national economic development. The curriculum needs greater relevance in providing skills to equip graduates for jobs. Also, the economy requires more focus on job development which relates to available skills. Simply spending more money on education at the parental or national level, the study finds, will not appropriately educate school leavers to make themselves or the national economy grow.
Shortcomings of the curriculum in the Jamaican education system are not being dealt with effectively. They are being overlooked with attempts to water down graduation requirements by introducing easier graduation levels or to simplify the exam questions so as to obtain more passes in order to relieve the embarrassment of dismal passing grades. The curriculum deserves a new look, considering its importance to the learning process. While the point made above that more relevance is needed to enable skills to match up with the requirements for economic development, this is not the only area in need of review.
The fundamental question to be determined is what skills, other than for economic development, are needed in the Jamaican context, to produce graduates able to fend for themselves and participate and contribute meaningfully to the society?
NOT BEING PREPARED
TO BE GOOD CITIZENS
Going to school means, to most students, studying, taking exams and preparing for work opportunities after graduation. This programme of education might be relevant to career considerations. But it does not prepare young Jamaicans to be good citizens of Jamaica. Jamaica is not like most countries. We have many social problems here which set us apart.
There was a time, not too long ago, when:
Jamaicans lived in a more orderly society;
They were a more disciplined people;
The focus of the people went beyond self-interest;
They shared community interests and pursued individual interests in socially acceptable ways;
Respect was paid when respect was due;
The concept of work was based on honest labour;
Achievement was through hard work;
Acts of violence were largely a result of personal disputes; and
Crime was under control.
Today, the lifestyle of the individual and nature of the society are very different:
Where there was order and discipline, now there is disorder and indiscipline;
Where the interests of the community were deep, now the focus is on individual interests and needs;
Where respect was due there is now disrespect;
Where work was an honest livelihood, for many today, work is for those who do not know how to beat the system.
Where acts of violence were a result of disputes between individuals, today, there is violence against entire communities, often without provocation;
Where crime was under control, crime is now out of control reaching record levels which positions Jamaica among the most murderous country on earth.
The deterioration of the economy has a parallel in the breakdown of the finer values of the people who must now seek for themselves and fight for themselves in order to survive. Many persons who are desperate, often do not allow honesty or the law to stand in their way. What is more, the needs of the people today are urgent. They cannot postpone their bills or the need for food, clothing or shelter. These basic needs have to be
satisfied today because nobody expects tomorrow to be better. So the quickest way to get a
dollar, no matter how, becomes the best way to earn a dollar. The character of the nation has undergone radical change.
In these circumstances, there is need for a new learning process to educate the people in positive social attitudes.
The school system today is academic-based, as it must be. The system must train students to understand English, mathematics, literature, geography, science, and so on. Whether it does so adequately is not the question here. The question is whether an academic education is sufficient to reshape the character of the country to recapture the social attitudes of the past that made Jamaicans proud to be Jamaicans. The answer is, it is not adequate.
There is an urgent need to reform the curriculum of the education system to include character-based education, to reinforce the need for good citizenship. This new look is so vital to Jamaica that it cannot be left to the ad hoc work of good-minded people and organisations with a social purpose to give voluntary support to retraining those who are antisocial. Nor are exhortations of national policy without back-up systems of training able to produce the required results. We fool ourselves if we believe that the antisocial attitudes formed over the first 20 or 30 years of life can be remedied by on-and-off social work programmes or political exhortations. While we must pursue all courses, we would be fighting an uphill battle of immense proportions if we rely only on efforts to change those whose characters are already formed.
FORMATION OF CHARACTER
We can effectively ensure that the formation of character takes place in the best social environment by starting where we can reach the next generation while their minds are open and behaviour patterns can be shaped.
The education system must be reformed to introduce character-based training through the curriculum in order to teach young people, from basic schools to high schools about life-skills and moral values. These cannot be extracurricular lectures or workshop projects. They must be curriculum subjects which are graded in examinations and the grades included in school leaving certificates.
We have no choice but to take a step into the past to recapture what was the best in the character of our people, if we are to prepare them to face the future. The curriculum must be changed to provide courses in character-based education starting with the earliest level of the education system.
No vision of the future can be complete without a vision of change in the nature of our
society and no change of society is possible without modifying the curriculum of life.
Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies. Email: df@uwimona.edu.jm
