It is not true that we want our political leaders to speak the truth. Dwight Nelson, the new minister of national security, was forced to bow and grovel over his frank - and very true - statement that a serious fight against crime would necessarily involve collateral damage by the police. My own column last week, which merely underscored the truth of the matter, however unpalatable, drew a number of hostile responses accusing me of being in favour of collateral damage and police abuses.

Then it was the turn of Minister of Education, Andrew Holness. The minister was stupid enough to tell Gleaner reporter Tyrone Reid, on record, that the quality issue in primary education stemmed from poor leadership as the number-one problem. And the number-two problem was "poor quality intake into the teachers' colleges. For many years, teaching was viewed as the profession of second best. You know you can't get into anything else, you go into teaching. You may not have had people going into the profession who are of the best quality".

greatest strength

The powerful Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), whose greatest strength is its capacity to lock down the system, and the teachers' colleges, quickly rolled out their heavy artillery, and soon, the minister was in full retreat. So embarrassingly so that The Gleaner was forced to back up its Sunday, June 7, front-page story, "School heads fail", with a Tuesday, June 9, verbatim transcript of the interview with the minister, from which the above quotes were taken.

And yet the minister is absolutely right. And the problems must be acknowledged if anything meaningful is to be done about them.

There have never been more MEds and BEds, and even PhDs, in education. The education literature supports the minister that, all things considered, far and away, school leadership is the single most important factor in school performance.

In the specific context of primary education, where resource needs are comparatively low, this is even more the case. Years ago, I wrote a column, "First teach them to read", which argued that the primary business of the primary school is to make children literate. So, let's cut the gloss and hype and super-curriculum and get on with it.

Policy and resources and better social and economic conditions of students obviously can help; but it is primarily the duty of the school principal to make it happen. Highly focused JAMAL used volunteer teachers, barely literate themselves, to teach adults to read in record time and under less-than-favourable conditions.

Blaming principals

The JTA President, Doran Dixon, as is to be expected, "rejected the minister's position that the principals were the primary reason for the pitiable results plaguing government-run elementary schools". [Tyrone Reid, The Gleaner]. Poverty, according to the teachers' union boss, is the principal problem. Despite all the remaining problems, Jamaica has never been less poor, schools have never been in better condition, and teachers have never been better 'educated'. Perhaps we are indeed getting value for education-investment money. But let's check.

The GSAT results are out. National average scores: mathematics, 53 per cent; language arts, 57 per cent; communication tasks, 61 per cent; social studies, 53 per cent; science, 53 per cent. When these dismal average scores are desegregated school by school, a very different picture emerges. And we can ask the sensible question, why do top-performing schools do better?

The Grade Four literacy test has been pushed back from June 16 by the North East St Catherine by-election, but will take place soon, and, for the first time, as a standardised national test. The National Assessment Programme (NAP) for primary education is delivering powerful comparative data, not just on student performance, but on school and school-leadership performance, and on individual teacher performance. The minister's unpleasant hypothesis can be empirically tested. There are enough MEds and PhDs around in education, both in the field and in the ministry, to do it with the NAP databases.

The minister's number-two problem is also a statement of fact. Teaching has been attracting some of the weakest students who have 'succeeded' with secondary education. Once teaching started losing its dominant position as a career of choice, Government has, historically, taken a number of compensatory steps, which have aggravated the problem. Students with only JSC passes were accepted into teacher education. While many other professions were insisting on five GCE O' levels/CXCs and even A' Levels/CAPE as entry requirements, teaching was accepting four GCE O' levels/CXCs. The pay factor was a crucial contributor, and for this, Government and public policy must accept responsibility.

second option

From where I sit, I am able to observe the choice of teacher education as a second option. But we don't have to rely on anecdotal evidence. Anyone can go and do comparative data analysis on matriculation into tertiary-education professional and general programmes. President Dixon committed a cardinal error of logical reasoning - which I work hard to steer my (un)critical thinking students away from - when he sought to overturn a general principle or point of fact by citing exceptions. Of course, there are exceptional teacher-education recruits - but far too few of them.

Few examination passes in themselves may not be the biggest problem if candidates were rigorously recruited for aptitude and intelligence and then given massive doses of content in compensation for weaknesses, instead of being overdosed with pedagogy, being taught endlessly how to teach very little.

Do not retreat, Minister! Despite being surrounded by self-serving mediocrity, stand up and fix the system! Countless children and an entire nation will owe you a debt of gratitude. You are young and strong and bright (not the out-of-order 'bright' in Jamaica!). You can absorb some licks in the national interest.

The disaster I have in mind is not in education. Despite its many problems, I don't think the system is quite a disaster. Last Sunday, June 7, was the 317th anniversary of the Great Port Royal earthquake of June 7, 1692, which many felt was divine judgement upon a wicked city. A very wicked modern city is just across the harbour. And we are also 14 days into the hurricane season.

While we prefer to wallow in our problems, one of the bright spots in public administration is the capacity we have built up to anticipate, respond to, and recover from natural disasters. We can't predict earthquakes; but we can predict hurricanes. Just like for education, we don't have all the resources we want, but our disaster preparedness and emergency-management system is world-class, and we could have taught the Americans a thing or two for their Katrina response.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.