School leavers 'in skills crisis'
By ALISON LOWE
Tribune Staff Reporter
alowe@tribunemedia.net:
SOCIETY is in crisis as "far too many Bahamians" leave school without the necessary skills either to join the workforce or go on to further education, MP for Bain and Grants Town Dr Bernard Nottage said.
Speaking in parliament yesterday, the MP suggested the Bahamian population is "not as literate as we claim to be" and an "urgent review" of the education system is in order.
He went on to claim that the education system must be "placed in the hands of visionaries and social reformers" if it is to play the socially transformative role that is necessary to help The Bahamas escape the "disastrous" situation it finds itself in.
Dr Nottage made his comments in the context of the debate in the House of Assembly on the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute Bill, which seeks to deliver independence to the technical training school by incorporating it and placing it under the governance of a Board made up of public and private sector-based individuals.
The Government introduced the Bill as one which will enhance the reputation of the institution and cause it to create graduates who are more relevant to today's economy.
Dr Nottage "congratulated" the Government on the Bill, welcoming the fact that it removes political interference from the administration of the institution after 61 years of its existence, but said it must be looked at in the context of the Bahamian educational system as a whole.
The PLP MP said that despite successive governments investing an "extremely large" proportion of the country's national income on education and expanding enrollment over the years, the country's "national patrimony and wealth" is being "squandered as more and more Bahamians pass through a system which does not effectively prepare them for the mastery of their environment in our Bahamas."
He lamented that "quantitative" rather than "qualitative" improvements have been made to the system.
"Having once been the railroad to social mobility and liberation" education in The Bahamas is in need of "urgent review" and a "broad range of innovations," said the MP.
Illustrating his point, Dr Nottage suggested the Bahamas is "fooling itself" when it comes to its levels of educational literacy as many people lack basic knowledge when they leave school.
"We need to look carefully at general and basic literacy. We know the truth tells us we are not as literate as we claim to be, particular at mathematics and elementary understanding of science, which is absolutely necessary for success in today's economy," he said.
Referring to the "poor or unsatisfactory BGCSE results" which have hovered at a D or D- average for some time, he said these "are nothing less than the festering tip of an even greater problem."
"Far too many Bahamians leave school prepared for neither further education or for the workplace. And I say now as I said a decade ago disaster looms - in fact disaster is here...because of our failure to take decisive action."
"It is my deep-seated belief that Bahamian society is in crisis," he continued.
He linked this situation to a "too long" existing tendency to study problems but not act, mentioning in particular the failure to implement the recommendations of a 1992 report on the post secondary education system which he suggested could have helped the country avoid ending up in the position he claims it now finds itself in.
"As we go forward education can play one of two roles. On the one hand it can reflect and enforce and reproduce the existing social order with all of its injustices and failures and its tendency towards chaos or we can place the educational system in the hands of visionaries and social reformers and it can be used as a major weapon for social transformation.
"I'm sure all of us would choose the latter but it does requires us to give up some of the reigns and some of the control, allow those who are best suited to doing so to run these systems."
He said that it is with this need for politicians to step back from the decision-making process as it relates to education that he supported the BTVI Bill, which increases the independence of that institutions as it relates to its curriculum, hiring, student admissions and awards, among other things.
April 22, 2010
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