Dawn Ritch, Contributor
LYNDEL A. BAILEY in a letter to the Editor says she joins with the Misses Joan Tucker and Audrey Cooper. All accuse me of being wrong about the state of music in Jamaica.
This latest writer demands to know my credentials, saying that she is an independent music educator.
Readers will remember that sometime ago I wrote "... singing is not taught in our schools, nor is music". This has vexed the educators who have had anything to do with the Jamaica School of Music since 1974, which set in train this disastrous state of affairs.
Miss Tucker said I was inaccurate and Eurocentric. It seems to me that anybody who points out the obvious is immediately accused of Eurocentrism. It is as though the facts are a huge and vexatious inconvenience.
BASIC BACKGROUND
In September 2001 the same Joan Tucker along with Clive Bowen, education officer in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, presented a paper to UNESCO. Among other things, the paper states, "It has been noted in Jamaica and other Caribbean territories that although music is supposed to be taught in Primary schools and Secondary schools, many principals fail to adhere to this requirement. It is typical therefore to find students entering Secondary school without a basic background in the subject..."
Before UNESCO the music educators say one thing, but to the Jamaican people they say quite another. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're trying to fool up Black people, and being rude in the bargain.
In the middle of this shameful morass Miss Bailey wants to know about my credentials. They should all concern themselves less with my credentials, and more with their own abilities to carry out the functions for which they have been employed.
Education officers at the Ministry of Education recently went on strike over pay issues with the principals of secondary schools. They wanted to get more. Asked by reporter Michael Sharpe on television what an education officer did, one of their number replied most sanctimoniously that their role was to ensure Quality Assurance in the Jamaican school system. Since children are doing very badly in schools, this admission by the education officer seems to me to be grounds for firing all of them on the spot. And there are over 260 such education officers employed to the Ministry.
Needless to say their days-long strike affected nothing, and not a soul was inconvenienced by their absence.
Miss Bailey writes to say that teaching music in secondary schools is "passé". At the risk of being called passé again, I would like to recall that in the 1950s there used to be about three or four education officers for the whole island. Today we have over 260, and many Jamaican school children can't read or write, much less add, multiply, divide and subtract. Some can navigate computers where you don't seem to need to be able to do either.
Since all branches of learning have apparently become passé in Jamaica, I would like to recommend that all these jobs be scrapped. The parlous state of local education is proof that the education officers are not supervising and evaluating our teachers.
Maxine Henry-Wilson, Minister of Education, has said that 95 per cent of her ministry's budget goes towards salaries. Clearly this percentage must be reduced.
The principal of a secondary school earns $1.1 million, the education officer earns more than that. Eliminating the latter, except for two or three, would produce a most wonderful economy. It would save over $250 million that could straight-away be put into schools.
Education officers and music education officers don't teach anybody how to do anything. In fact they keep the country in darkness, so why bother employ them? It would be much better to pay the senior school principal in each parish a little more to supervise and evaluate all the teachers in his or her parish. Schooling would then improve dramatically.
WASTE OF PUBLIC FUNDS
Parents must complain, because teaching things like patois and congo drums in schools is a total waste of public funds and the height of nonsense. Children learn patois in their homes and can go into the yard next door to learn congo drums. They don't have to go to school to learn that.
English should be taught in school as a foreign language like it used to be, where the children come back home and teach others. If patois and congo drums are the Jamaican identity, then we don't need to learn it.
Academics should not further their linguistic careers at the expense of children. Books are written in English, and children need to read them. If Jamaican children were just taught reading, writing and arithmetic, they could go to the library and educate themselves. Instead the education budget is squandered on a web of bureaucracy and salaries, while the poor children can't even use a library, and basic musical literacy is regarded as too troublesome.
Now that Education has a sensible minister, I hope that she will make sense of education. They must look at how the money is being spent, and re-order their priorities.
FOOTNOTE: My column last week, "I'm not African", has predictably provoked squeals of protest from those to whom the colour of their skins is a mantra. Black princes and princesses all! Their "education" has been the protest messages of popular music (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh) and the leftist attractions of failed anarchists (Marcus Garvey, Franz Fanon, Walter Rodney). They must resolve to read more widely, even if it makes their hearts pound. This advice is equally valid for white skin-heads.
