George Henry, Gleaner Writer

Montego Bay, St. James:

Minister of Education and Youth, Maxine Henry-Wilson, says educators, especially at the tertiary level, need to decide what they want to achieve from providing education for students at that level.

While bringing greetings at the annual Conference of the Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica at the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay on Wednesday, under the theme, 'Colleges and Students Partnering for Success', the Education Minister said the end product for students at that level of the education system is not just for them to obtain the best degree.

"It is not just the best degree, although we need the quality assurance which is being provided. It is not just the articulation, although we need to ensure that we have resources that are used," said Mrs. Henry-Wilson.

Mimicking

She added that, in a society which is increasingly becoming intolerant as well as increasingly mimicking rather than creating, and in which there is a decline in terms of personal and societal responsibilities, educators need to determine what is being brought to the tertiary level that will make beneficiaries greater and better nation builders.

"If we are just spending money on more degrees, we can get that anywhere. There is nothing unique about that," she said. "We can buy it and market it. We can just get somebody to come in and set up an institution, we don't have to go through all the problems of putting together curricula and whatever."

But, the Education Minister said, "Unless we have something that we are offering to our graduates at the tertiary level, that will make them better Jamaicans and better citizens of the world, we would have failed the tertiary sector". She added that the tertiary sector is where we build citizens and persons who can assume responsibility for their society.

Despite an increase in the number of students accessing tertiary education, Mrs. Henry-Wilson pointed out that Jamaicans have not seen any significant improvement in life around them, as there are too many indicators that show that something is lacking.

The Education Minister wants educators to think about the kind of Jamaica which we want and how to build it, as it will not come about because of what is in the curriculum only.