Martin Henry, Gleaner Writer
The powerful head of the powerful HEART Trust/ NTA usually has the ear of the Minister of Education. The capacity to finance a variety of things in education, based on inflows from a two per cent cess on employers, does create very favourable access.
But the Minister does not seem to be particularly impressed by the view of sixth forms projected by a HEART Trust/NTA "Report on Reforming Education and Skills Training Systems: Responding to the Demands for Increased Employability and Productivity of Labour in the Caribbean." The report, prepared for the ILO Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean, was released only days before we met for round table discussions on a Strategic Plan for Tertiary Education, 2006-2010, on April 19 and 20 this year.
Futuer Plans
In her contribution to the Sectoral Debate, Minister Henry-Wilson said Government was aiming to increase access to tertiary-level education from 18 per cent to 33 per cent by 2010. "We are viewing the sixth form programme," she said, "as a viable vehicle to tertiary access." Yes?
Sixth forms had come up for vigorous, but inconclusive, discussion at the roundtable on tertiary education: their status as tertiary level units, the economics of their operation, their articulation with degree-granting tertiary institutions, staffing, performance, etc.
The HEART Trust/ NTA Report, which Director, Robert Gregory brought to the round table, was based on a survey of 474 sixth-formers in four Caribbean territories: Jamaica which accounted for 39 per cent of the sample, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and St. Lucia. The findings of the survey were intended to "enable a clearer picture of [sixth form] students' perception of their immediate productive employability, their knowledge and understanding of the emerging regional economy and the career options open for them to exploit".
While there were generally high expectations of employability, "were they to withdraw from their sixth form course of study", only 6.4 per cent of respondents reported having any competency-based qualification. But 71.5 per cent would use opportunities to acquire work-related qualifications.
Steps Taken
The traditional, sentiment-laden sixth form has been exclusively a device for preparing a small number of "academic" students, at high-unit cost, for matriculation into a traditional "academic" university, which in the Caribbean meant almost exclusively the UWI. There have been steps to broaden this brief, including controversial plans for the introduction of CAPE associate degrees. But every one of these transformation plans could be accommodated through alternative arrangements such as the community colleges system for which there was to have been one in every parish.
In the last seven years, the number of local universities has increased from one to seven; not one of which, besides the UWI, requires sixth form A Levels/CAPE for matriculation.
Today is a big day for the HEART Trust-backed High School Equivalency Programme (HISEP) which has its official launch. HISEP, funded by the HEART Trust/NTA and delivered through the Jamaica Foundation for Life-long Learning [formerly JAMAL], has been quietly running for a while. For years I have been an advocate of a high school diploma for adults and was
particularly pleased to have lent HISEP a hand in getting off the ground by conducting workshops on communication skills for the very first batch of ardent adult students.
Our next move should be the introduction of a standard high school diploma for Grade 11 graduates who meet minimum requirements of a good general secondary level education. Not the expansion of redundant sixth forms whose days of glory and of usefulness firmly belong to another era passed.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
