THE EDITOR, Sir:

It has almost become a culture that every September we are faced with the same school opening crisis of too many schoolers and too few spaces to adequately accommodate them. What we have systematically failed to effectively do over the past few years is to forecast and spotlight those areas of our educational expansion and development plans which should ensure that every child has a chance to be considered for schooling, and that no child gets lost in the shuffle for a desk or a chair.

The values of careful school-space planning are many and varied and this I believe, should begin with the mandatory registration of every birth in every town and every parish. From this database there would be a better understanding of what to anticipate in five years, resulting in less surprises when the child is ready for entry to either basic or primary schools. Contingencies for such placements would, therefore, be an essential government function rather than a yearly short-term peripheral accomplishment (after school reopens).

Effective governance and management must warrant development plans on long-range needs. Programmes must be in place to both address and proactively decide how to meet these perpetual needs for as far into the future as possible, whether the Government will or will not change. For the most part, it seems to me that the Government/Ministry of Education is often times preoccupied with the immediate first-day-of-school short-term issues and in long-term planning they seem not to know where they are and whither they goest. Every educational shortcoming is met with an excuse or apology, often resulting in many parents having to either sing the 'school blues' or demonstrating for 'justice and action'.

Physical facilities forgotten

In addition to the economic and manpower resources, some of the physical facilities seem to be forgotten until the first day of school. On September 4, the first day of the school year, I saw on national television a school being painted. I had to reminisce on my own elementary school days when it was the citizens who willingly did this during the long summer holidays, all in the spirit of volunteerism and the interest and welfare of their children and community.

I am, etc.,

SONIA CHRISTIE

Stewart Town

Trelawny