THE EDITOR, Sir:

I OFFER a parable that if understood could clarify to the GSAT awardees what is required of them in any society. Consider for a moment that, for the most part, your intellect comes from one gushing source like YS Falls or Dunn's River. Clean and clear 'water' in need of direction.

Some of that water will flow swiftly and beautifully in fast moving rivers, cutting a course and removing obstacles out of its way as it goes. It is a torrent that is teeming with life like big fish.

Yet some water will not form rivers, but bifurcate (look it up) into a stream because, for one reason or another, it chose an alternative path. It may have found porous ground and have slipped underground or taken broader, easier slopes with seemingly unmovable obstacles like boulders that may cause it to 'change its course'. Yes, streams flow, but lazily with no power and no real direction. They too have life - not with big fishes found in rivers, but 'tikki tikki' that feed on algae on rocks and stones at the bottom of the stream.

Puddles, but useful

Then there are the puddles - stagnant, muddy pockets where water pools up and watch the nearby river or stream as it passes by. It does not flow because it is landlocked and totally dependent on the overflow or backwash from the river or stream. But, nonetheless, it too has life, if even for a short time, like mosquito larvae perhaps. The puddles have their use, its mosquito larvae feeds the tiki tikki which, in turn, are food for the big fish.

Nevertheless, the river, stream and puddle all originated from the same source. They took varying paths and will eventually terminate at the same place.

To the 2009 GSAT students, choose wisely your paths in life. Understand the society in which you live, whether in Jamaica or overseas, the story is the same.

Choose your future

Regardless of the results of this two-day test, know your own self and real potential. The one thing that cannot be distributed by 'curry favour' is intellect. It is given to all and can be developed, if you want to develop it. Choose whether you want to be a big fish, a tikki tikki or mosquito larva. Do you want to eat or be eaten? We cannot all be successful but it is you who gets to choose the measure of your own success, even in the face of a skewed test that seeks to determine who should eat and who should be eaten.

As a product of the dreaded Common Entrance Examination of the 1980s, I recall my classmates horrified faces when they failed the test and were placed (by default) at a newly built secondary school in Spanish Town. It became a dumping ground for the 'so-called failures'. I see the school now and their successes in academia and discipline after they shook the stigma.

Students, disprove the test by succeeding wherever you are placed.

I am, etc.,

KETH WATSON

keth_w@yahoo.com

St Catherine