Aubyn Hill
IN JAMAICA everyone treats education like motherhood - everyone is for it and seeks to support it (at least with lip service) but each supporter is very careful about criticising it because, like mother, everyone treats education as a very fragile and sensitive issue. While senseless, uninformed and even crass criticism will not serve much purpose, if we continue to treat education and those who are intimately involved with it - teachers, parents, students, government administrators and bureaucrats, as well as the wider society which is expected to use the products of our educational system - as too delicate to be changed or even criticised, then we will continue to achieve little more than solid failure, general mediocrity and some patches of excellence. That kind of outcome is clearly not satisfactory for the investment in effort and money we place in our educational system, nor is this outcome going to prepare us to live in a much more demanding and globalised world where "knowledge workers" are, without much argument, the single most valuable asset a company or country can possess.
UNEQUIVOCAL HIGH STANDARDS
The right to a good education is one of the few 'rights' which the Left (generally statists) and the Right (more private enterprise driven) readily agree as a benefit that must be had by each citizen. Without a doubt, states have played a very important role in educating citizens in a variety of political and economic arrangements varying from communist regimes on the left to really open free enterprise economies on the right. I believe the Government in Jamaica will have to continue to spend a very substantial sum on the education of our young - and not so young - people. However, I also believe that the time has come for the Government to open up the educational system at all levels so that private sector ideas, money and management approaches can be used to bolster and burnish our lagging educational system.
But probably the most urgent need in Jamaica is for a consensus to be built that we need to demand a higher standard of education, at all levels; from the parents of our children, the teachers in our schools, the administrators of these schools, the bureaucrats and policy makers in the ministry of education, the members of the cabinet of our government as well as from the general public. We need to look at the best systems worldwide and begin to adopt the best from them in all areas of our school system, from basic schools to tertiary educational institutions. We need to ensure that the standards by which we judge our educational system is not the occasional outstanding result of a particular child or school, but rather by the very high standard of education that is provided to the children of the poorest in our society. We must turn the hard and hot focus of our high standards and requirements on the quality of education that is given in the inner city and poor district schools. We must put in use very objective but demanding and high measuring standards to make sure that our children at the poorest levels are getting the best world-class education from our schools.
Clearly then, it is not just how much money we spend on our schools but the commitment of all the intimate stakeholders - including our students - and the installing of very high standards plus the measuring of results against those standards that will really forge the change that will lead to a significant improvement in the quality of our education and the quality of our student graduates. In Singapore, for instance, their educational system is measured and judged by the quality of education that the poorest children in Singapore receive. That quality of education - judged by the results achieved by these poor students - must be equal to that achieved by children who attend the best schools in the city state.
EDUCATION IN JAMAICA, FINLAND AND SOUTH KOREA
When we review the success or otherwise of the educational system of various countries, what we find is that while the level of government involvement, or lack of it, does affect the quality of the educational output, by far the most important factor is the universal requirement by all sectors in countries with successful educational systems that the content in school rooms and the output of the entire educational system must match or beat the highest standard in the world. In the 1960s, the educational system of South Korea was at the bottom of any pile one would choose to review. Today, South Korea, judged in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) league, is second only to the United States of America. The difference came because South Korea demanded and still demands that its students are taught to the highest standards in the world and they are required to meet them. The same is true in Finland where the Finns demanded of themselves that their educational system would be world class and the output of their students would be measured against these high standards. The rest, as they say, is history with Finland giving us Nokia and leading or staying right near the top of world competitive nations as judged by the World Economic Council in Davos, Switzerland.
GERMANY AND THE UK AT THE OTHER END
Germany's education system is totally state funded but it is ruled by the fear of the word 'elitism'. This fear drives the educational policy where the output of the German education system ends up in the default zone of meandering mediocrity. In the United Kingdom the elite who can pay and demand high standards get a good education. In 1997 Prime Minister Tony Blair moved to the 'egalitarian' comprehensive school system and away from the independent schools which were seen as elitist. Eight years later after the comprehensive school system adventure failed rather comprehensively by also defaulting to abject mediocrity, Mr. Blair has now decided to change his tune. After eight education secretaries, he is moving rapidly away from the comprehensive school system and giving choice and responsibility back to parents - in effect moving back to the independent school system.
We in Jamaica must learn from all these 'free examples'. Very importantly, let us move very quickly to adopt the system used by successful states such as Singapore, South Korea and Finland and put our educational system into the world-class status. The most important ingredient in all this, is that the Government, private sector, educational institutions with their administrators, parents and students must now require of ourselves nothing less than an absolutely world class standard of education. Maybe we can begin to do this by looking seriously and encouraging many of our schools to move to the International Baccalaureate system of education. I know it produces students that are world class and achieve at the highest measured levels across the world. Prime Minister-designate Portia, this needs to be at the top of your community approach to government.
Aubyn Hill is the CEO of Corporate Strategies Ltd.,
a restructuring and financial advisory firm. Respond to: writerhill@gmail.com
