Noel

Once in the 'life' of each successive government there has been a programme of 'education reform'. Each time it is announced, it gets the nation's approval because we are all aware that our education system does not deliver the goods and we hope that each new thrust would improve the product.

But, generally, each of these reform programmes tends to be a 'version' of a similar scheme which was created to improve the education product in one major metropolitan country or the other. So what we do is adapt it and twist it to suit our needs.

There are two main reasons for this. First, it is in these countries that the major, extended, research in the field of education is done and it is their governments and universities that can fund this kind of extensive research. So we, in a way, have to depend on their findings. The second reason is that, whenever our government gets international assistance for the improvement of our education product, it is generally tied to our adoption of a scheme based on these research findings.

Done quite well

So we do what we have to do and, should we give it really serious thought, we would realise that we have done quite well, considering the history of the system we have.

At the very beginning, during the era of slavery, education for blacks in the Caribbean was outlawed. After emancipation, when education was made available, it was the Church (mainly the Anglicans) that had complete control of the system. In 1886, historian Louis Rothe stated that "the government of neither mother country nor colony exercised any influence of importance over the general running of the school system. That was completely in the hands of the denomination to which the school belonged.

"At the present time [December 1886]," he goes on, "the British government has up to now contributed 25,000 pounds annually for the erection of schools [and to cover their expenses] in the West Indies and Mauritius." This was, even then, a paltry sum, considering that it was to be spread among so many islands. Importantly, he points out that the sums were made available with the aim to "propagate Christianity and spread enlightenment to foreign parts."

Examination of documents from the colonial period reveals that quite a lot of effort was spent on 'Christianising the natives'. Much energy and thought was expended on ways in which the 'heathen' religious practices retained from Africa could be eradicated and, generally, the sanitising of all things African. This was one of the major thrusts in the schools. Then again, the concept 'spreading enlightenment' meant simply the learning of the three 'Rs' and whatever else that was thought necessary for their graduates to function at the lower levels of society. Later, men of true Christian charity helped to establish secondary level schools to prepare young men (and later women) to take their places at the upper levels of society.

Superiority of European culture

But our islands 'belonged' to Europe. Our benefactors also genuinely believed in the superiority of European culture and so our schools were structured along exactly the same lines as those of Europe and the syllabuses were the same. It was, therefore, not surprising that they produced black, colonial, 'European gentlemen and ladies'.

And therein lies our problem. At Independence, when we had an opportunity to reform our education system to truly serve the needs of the Jamaican people at large, the persons who were in a position to do so were those who had successfully made it through the very system that they were to change. To radically change the underpinning philosophies of the system would be to declare that the system was fundamentally flawed, as far as the colonised people were concerned. To state this would be to aver that their success in doing so well meant less than it was made out to be. This was a hard pill to swallow.

Between this, and the immensity of the task itself, we implemented half-measures - changes that were not fundamental enough to make a real difference and so doomed to half-success. We have continued in this way ever since.

Keith Noel is an educator. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.