My good friend Dr Wendel Abel wrote an excellent article in The Gleaner (July 29) on Jamaica's failure to capitalise on its abundance of natural resources and its social and artistic capital to help build economic prosperity for its people.

Of course, I am in agreement with the good doctor and I subscribe to the factors that he has highlighted as some of the underlying causes (and effects) of the current paradox. I will comment on one - the influence of the education system.

Undoubtedly, education has been, and continues to be, a very powerful engine of social mobility for a significant number of especially poor Jamaicans. Without access to education, many who have come and gone through some of the nation's most distinguished halls of learning would never have had opportunities to excel socially and economically. But the truth is that the current education system is flawed and poorly structured to meet the needs of the majority of young people in the schools. And so, the argument that the education system, fostered by past and current institutions and governments, continues to support the status quo is true.

This situation, in which generations of Jamaicans continue in a life of poverty into perpetuity, promotes mountains of antisocial behaviours that are difficult and almost impossible to control. And with this truth comes the harsh realisation that access to education and the class structure are inextricably linked.

Archaic education system

Every child has a right to an education and social development. To deprive a child of the right to learn and thrive is to promote a system of unfairness. But since the system continues to preserve and promote the status quo, it is not surprising that as the number of young people seeking opportunities to excel in the social and economic web are locked out of society's opportunity structure (Abel), the Government, and private sector too, must invest huge amounts of resources to hunt, capture, cage and punish the potential teacher, or doctor, businessman or woman, IT guru or scientist whose dreams have been shattered from an early age as their destinies have been predetermined by an archaic education system.

In today's modern economy, elementary/primary-level education is insufficient to meet the demands of a changing world in which Jamaica, a rising frontier nation, has a pivotal role to play. However, if the government of today, along with any future government, does not have the courage to finally tackle the root of the problem and widen the education net to allow children to gain access to secondary education without barriers, any plans to achieve economic prosperity and social mobility for all Jamaicans will be an exercise in futility, and the persistent poverty and class structure that the country has accepted and endured for decades will prevail.

I am, etc.,

JULIE TAYLOR-OMOLE

tigerjt75@yahoo.com

Maryland, USA