Martin Henry, Contributor
IT IS graduation season again. From basic school to college. And the poincianas are blooming. There is more hope in the brash colours of the poinciana than in the heart of many a high school graduate with little prospects of CXC passes and further education.
Ever since participating in graduation ceremonies at Brown's Town Community College, I have associated the blooming of the poincianas with graduation. There was a stately old tree on the college campus which was unfailingly in bloom for the last Wednesday in June - Graduation Day.
And GSAT results are finally out. The media has determined they are late and that the Ministry of Education has bungled. One cartoon even has the minister decked out in dunce cap. Children's trauma from the short extra wait has been played to the max.
UNEVEN RACE
When Norman Manley intro-duced the Common Entrance Examination in 1958, which was replaced by the GSAT 40 years later, only 2,000 free places were made available. Today, secondary education is near universal. Its quite variable quality and the generally poor performance of its beneficiaries are matters of much larger concern than any 'delay' in the GSAT results, results which 'fly de gate' for some 50,000 11-plus-year-old Jamaicans.
The race is quite uneven and the large majority of participants will exit the system to pomp and circumstance five years later with no skills for work and not enough (if any) CXC passes for further education.
A lot has been done, against the grain of history, to upgrade junior secondary schools to new secondary schools to newly-upgraded high schools. At the same time, much has happened to pull down the quality of traditional high schools. Not least of all the general social decay in which education must seek to thrive.
Quality high school places remain a scarce resource with very high demand. Despite noble intentions, GSAT, just like the CEE before it, is essentially a placement exam which allocates scarce resources.
Any role as a final achievement test for primary education, which its name - Grade Six Achievement Test - signals, is a late non-starter. The creative juggling of the contradictory factors of choice, performance and home location for placement will take a bit of time - a tad longer this year.
An Education Transformation Project calling for multiple billions of dollars, which nobody can find,is out there on the road somewhere. One good trans-formation which has already taken place in the system, but which is poorly used, is the introduction of standardised assessments at various levels.
These assessments can provide powerful management data on school performance, teacher performance - and ministry performance - and not just on student performance.
Everybody now agrees that early childhood education now requires special treatment as the foundation of the whole system. Shifting resources there must mean cuts elsewhere. The education pie is not infinite. And (sacrilege?) may be unsustainably too large a portion of the Budget from which nearly 70 cents per dollar must go to debt servicing.
GANGSTERS AMONG GRADUATES
A great deal of the educational opportunities already available is not being properly seized. Gangsters are now among the graduates/leavers from the secondary level even in deep rural Jamaica. "Gang violence hits schools' in Trelawny, The Gleaner was reporting on Monday.
As the same day's editorial pointed out, skills certification is more and more an inflexible requirement for the world of work. The vast majority of Jamaican workers, having graduated from here and there, still have no certification. And many of them do not even have a sound enough educational base for training.
The question of returns on the massive education investments being made cannot be politically dodged forever. This GSAT and graduations season is a great moment to put it squarely on the table.
A frank assessment of value for money is going to be fundamental for any real transformation. The 'dunce' minister, I have always felt, is more than intellectually and managerially equal to the task. Politically equal is another matter. And her boss, if determined to be 'Mama', may not be much help in that direction.
Martin Henry is a communications specialist.
