Students from the Waterford Infant School.
Don Robotham, Contributor
SO FAR, public discussion of the educational task force report has tended to focus on the issue of placing teachers on a pay-for-performance system. But this highly dubious proposal is only one of many made in the report. In fact, wisely, it is not put forward as a panacea or even a major solution to our educational crisis.
The report contains invaluable data and makes a very important proposal for what amounts to a mass campaign for remedial reading which would require widespread voluntary effort from the middle and upper classes. It also makes a devastating critique of the Ministry of Education which clearly needs to be shut down.
WHERE TO BEGIN
Raising teacher quality educational reform in Jamaica must begin with the teachers. In this respect, the report is seriously flawed. It does not stress the point that the crucial problem we face is that the real (not formal) educational level of our teachers is obviously much too low. The report itself makes clear that we have achieved (or nearly achieved) many of the quantitative targets we set ourselves, except perhaps for school attendance. Certainly, in terms of raw enrolment, teacher education, curriculum, testing, book and materials delivery, school lunches and the like, there is not that much more to be achieved.
For example, despite the hullabaloo around expanding early childhood education, the report points out that the target for 100% enrolment in early childhood education institutions (ages 4-5) in 2003, set in the Educational White Paper of 2001, was basically achieved a year early, from 2002 (98.7%).
EVADING QUALITY ISSUES
But the idea that the problems of poor educational quality in Jamaica were due to low enrolment, low attendance, lack of equity in access, lack of testing, poor management, lack of a core curriculum and so forth, is an evasion. These approaches have been tried and have failed decisively. More than 40 years of policy failure should have settled this issue once and for all. We need an alternative approach focused unrelentingly on quality. This report does not provide this.
In fact, in the present weakness of our educational system, if we were to embark on a massive expansion of any section of our educational system, such as early childhood education, it would weaken the system further. All that would happen is that in addition to having a rotten primary and high school system we would simply add a rotten early childhood education system! Instead of making our children illiterate from primary school, we could now congratulate ourselves on making them permanently illiterate from infancy! Of course, politicians could boast of this, their latest illusory 'achievement'. As usual.
IMPROVE QUALITY OF PROCESSES
Surprisingly, apart from providing useful data on the formal training of teachers (83 per cent are certified trained but what does this really mean in practice?) and the pay-for-performance recommendation, the report mentions but does not pursue the issue of teacher quality. Yet countries which have achieved outstanding results in education (such as Finland) excel precisely in this area. Enhancing the quality of educational leadership (Including the qualities of the minister!), teaching practice, teacher training colleges and the quality of the educational process as a whole must therefore be the focus of our efforts.
In this connection, the report points out rightly that principals cannot just be good school managers as has been wrongly proposed in the past. They have to be leaders, which is a horse of an entirely different colour. An educational leader is not a number cruncher, although they need number crunchers to assist them. He or she has to communicate a vision of what the school should be and be able to actively lead the process of educational transformation by example, from in front, in the classroom. We also have to focus seriously on raising the quality of education of our teachers.
EDUCATIONALLY STRONG COUNTRIES
In the educationally strong countries, teachers are very knowledgeable, have a high intellectual and personal culture and operate in a classroom and school environment which encourages student creativity, sustains high expectations for students and makes huge demands on teachers. For example, in Finland, primary school teachers have to have a master's degree. Finland came first in the recent annual 2004 PISA survey of educational performance in 41 countries.
The successful countries do not have school league tables, pay-for-performance or intensive testing of students and teachers, as is being currently proposed in Chile, for example (they face a crisis similar to ours). Countries such as the United Kingdom or the United States which have pursued these managerialist illusions for decades scored among the worst in the 2004 PISA survey.
The U.K. dropped from fourth to eleventh place in science; from seventh to eleventh in reading and from eighth to 18th in math. The United States came 33rd in math. Among 29 industrial countries, the United States placed 24th. Tops worldwide in math were Finland and South Korea.
Our football idol, Brazil, the land of our heroes - Pele, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho came dead last. Forty-first out of forty-one! What Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Canada, Poland, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea have in common is enormously high respect for knowledge and education in the society as a whole and much school autonomy.
LOW VALUE PLACED ON EDUCATION
This raises a fundamental problem which the report does not even mention. This is the decline in the value placed on education in Jamaican society due to our coarse and crass materialism. Certification (or 'credentialism') is highly valued by the status-driven, consumption-mad Jamaican. Education, however, is another matter. The problem is not simply to be solved by raising teachers' pay. It is the stature of knowledge, original thinking and innovative practices and the teaching profession as a whole, which has to be raised a more profound and daunting challenge which a materialistic society does not have a clue how to address.
Many teachers and Jamaican educational experts have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is in the area of poor educational culture, low teacher competence and negative teaching practices that we fail. One example is the work of Mrs. Paulette Chevannes and the Change from Within Project begun by the late Sir Philip Sherlock. Another is the excellent dissertation by Dr. Rebecca Tortello on the potential for the creative use of museums for the education of Jamaican children a potential which she points out has scarcely been realised. A third is the recent successful math workshop for Jamaican teachers put on by Reggie Nugent and the Gibraltar Institute of Oracabessa and California. There are sure to be many other examples of which I am unaware.
We have retained the worst rote learning methods of the colonial system and enhanced it with our own home grown authoritarianism, brutishness, ignorance and sheer incompetence.
BROKEN MACHINERY
If this is so, then the central issue before us is how can we change this dreadfully ignorant teaching culture for the better? How can we improve the teaching of teachers, teaching practices and educational processes as a whole? A careful and sustained process and quality analysis (and transformation) is called for, rather like how Grace, Kennedy remade itself.
Don't tell me about pay for performance. That assumes that you have the top leadership, the human resources and the processes in place ready to deliver but not motivated. But our problem is not one of lack of motivation, or how to lubricate a slightly rusty educational machinery. The problem is deeper. Our machinery is broken.
EXCELLENT EDUCATORS STILL IN THE SYSTEM
None of this means that we do not still have excellent educators in our system. I know quite a few. If we weed out the bad, and rally the good people giving them the authority, stature and resources which they need in an entirely different educational process, you may be surprised at the quality improvements we could achieve!
Don Robotham is professor of anthropology at the City University of New York and is a former pro vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies.
