But this is no cause for celebratory whooping and hollering by teachers and their union, for as Education Minister Andrew Holness averred, the improvement notwithstanding, Jamaica's primary education system has much to accomplish before satisfying its obligations to the society. It continues to deliver too many students unprepared to adequately absorb secondary education.

Indeed, based on the raw numbers published in yesterday's edition of this newspaper, this year 46,643 students were subjected to the grade four literacy test. Of that number, 32,682, or 70 per cent, displayed mastery of the literacy inventory. Significantly, that is three percentage points lower than the estimate that Mr Holness gave just over a month ago in a policy report to Parliament.

Literacy criteria

Whatever the statistical shifts and corrections that account for the discrepancy, the data underlines an important fact - the continued wide gap between the performance of students at government primary schools and privately owned ones; 98.5 per cent of students meet the literacy criteria for the age cohort.

Or, put another way, these figures highlight a systemic problem in the government private schools which, to a substantial degree, relates to a weakness in, or absence of, accountability.

In that regard, the outcomes reinforce Mr Holness' recently unveiled initiative to establish literacy targets at primary schools and to hold head teachers accountable for their achievement.

This is a programme which should be enthusiastically embraced by the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), but about which the teachers' union - at last in public - has been, at best, lukewarm. The association and its new president, Mr Michael Stewart, appear still to be trapped in the mould fashioned by the leadership of the recent past.

Performance

Mr Stewart, as he demonstrated by his performance at Porus High, by improving educational and other social outcomes of this upgraded school, has the ability to extricate himself from those who would prefer to maintain the old order.

In that paradigm, there is no relationship to performance and reward, and accountability is not something to be measured. Rather, it is preferable to lament about what is wrong, what tools are absent and to ignore what it is that leadership can do to put things right. Had that been the approach adopted by Mr Stewart at Porus, that school would have maintained its old reputation as an institution to be bypassed rather than one for which an expanding body of people genuinely support and respect.

Mr Stewart's task, therefore, more so than leading the demand for the $8 billion back pay - which the Government can clearly ill afford to pay at this time - is to steer the JTA into support of Mr Holness' proposal to lift literacy at the grade four level to 95 per cent by 2015. That would require a five per cent gain per year.

In its embrace of these targets, the JTA must back new contracts for principals and sanctions for when they fail to accomplish deliverables, including literacy performance.

The JTA and teachers will find such an engagement not only liberating, but that good results would be the best route to public support for pay demands.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.