Students of St. Elizabeth Technical High School inside the school's library. - Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
THE DISCUSSION is ongoing as to whether our education system is serving the needs of our society.
Given our low levels of passes in Mathematics and English, it is painfully obvious that something is wrong. Is it the student, the teacher, or the parent who should be held responsible for these failures?
Many would argue that in the end we are all responsible. However, it is evidently clear that leadership must come from the administrators of our education system.
All governments are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that its constituents are provided with, and entitled to, all the facilities that are needed to ensure private enterprise, economic growth, social welfare and educational attainment, enabling every person to self-actualise.
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
This, essentially, is the cornerstone of good governance.
In this regard,we wish to lift the level of discussion to the causes of the failure at CXC and suggest some corrective measures that ought to be considered in the way forward.
Scholars in cognitive development have long argued that in the first seven years of a child's development the values and attitudes that are developed determine the individual's behaviour throughout life.
Consecutive governments have allowed education in these pivotal years to be operated laissez-faire. This created a scenario in which persons that are not qualified to instruct pre-schoolers have that responsibility. As such these children are ill-equipped with the fundamentals that they require.
In 1997, the Opposition proposed that Government regulate the operations of basic schools, kindergarten and day care centres. Legislation has subsequently been passed to this effect and steps are being taken by the current administration to affect this. However the pace at which it is being done is inadequate.
PRIMARY EDUCATION
Having learnt the fundamentals incorrectly, children are then sent into primary schools that usually have overcrowded classrooms, attended to by one teacher who is not necessarily adept in all subject areas he/she is asked to teach.
Additionally, as the situation stands, there are no measures of tracking each child individually to record his failures or successes as a means to formulating corrective measures. It is duly noted, however, that a child's performance at school does not lie strictly within the confines of a classroom but parental involvement is of utmost importance.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
First, it is estimated that the student to teacher ratio island-wide stands at 35 to 1. Internationally accepted levels stand at 25 to 1. Serious effort needs to be taken to improve facilities nationwide to bring it to this standard.
Additionally, to ensure that subject matters are being delivered in the most effective manner, teachers should not be assigned to classes to instruct in all subject areas but should be assigned to subject categories (arts or sciences) according to their competence.
For instance, this could be done by dividing primary schools into three tiers, grouping grades 1 and 2 together (beginner), 3 and 4 together (intermediate) and 5 and 6 together (GSAT) and then two teachers would be assigned to each tier, one teaching sciences for both grades and the other arts.
Second, a national database that records the performance of every child should be created. It should further be stipulated that reports outline competence. For example, mathematics being divided into computation, comprehension and reasoning to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the individual students.
This would give the Ministry of Education the ability to better plan based on aggregated figures and better enable schools to address individual student needs.
Third, summer schools could be used to perform remedial courses for students who are in need. Having used the tracking system to identify the weaknesses of the student, the Ministry would then have the ability to design the curriculum in creative ways to address the specific needs of children that were unable to cope throughout the regular school terms.
Finally, to ensure that each child's needs inside and outside the classroom are being met, the Ministry should mandate the use of parental guarantors to ensure that the child is attending and performing in school.
A parental guarantor can be a parent, a member of the community or a Government official, in the event that the child proves to be unmanageable by parent or guardian. The guarantor would be required to attend meetings periodically in order to review the performance of the child.
HIGH SCHOOLS
While the GSAT affords more children access to secondary education, the current inequity in funding that prevails between traditional and non-traditional high schools stands as the most debilitating factor in the quality of education that each individual is given.
Government's allocation of expenditure on schools should be based on need and infrastructural requirements that would ensure that all schools are equipped with the necessary tools.
Many of the suggestions that prevail for primary schools could also be implemented in high schools, such as tracking student performance, utilising summer schools and parental guarantors.
Another suggestion is the more pronounced role of the guidance counsellors to assist in wholesale evaluation of students and identifying specific problems faced by under-performing students.
The development of the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA) and the eventual implementation of the Western Hemisphere Trade Area warrants that Spanish be made a compulsory subject, along with information computer technology, which becomes relevant in a global economy.
In all this funding is a critical issue. G2K supports the call for increased allocation of Government's expenditure on education and suggest that any fiscal shortfall be financed by a long term educational bond, "the Educational Revolution Bond". At this critical juncture for development it is imperative that no resources be spared in developing and nurturing our most precious resource, our youth. We do not propose to have the magic formula but believe that reasonable debate must ensue and the best set of ideas be implemented. Education is of utmost national importance!
* Generation 2000 is an organisation of young professionals aligned to the Jamaica Labour Party. Send comments to g2k@anngel.com.jm
