tribune242 editorial:
DURING the Budget debate in the House of Assembly last week, former Education Minister Alfred Sears, announced that the country's education system is "broken" and in need of total transformation.
"I have been a Minister of Education and I can tell you the educational system in the Bahamas is broken. It is broken! And no amount of patching is going to change that. It must be transformed," said Mr Sears.
Mr Sears was not breaking new territory with this announcement. This "broken" system is a fact that we -- especially employers -- are all aware of and have had to accept for too long.
As Ralph Massey, a respected economist who did much of the research for the Coalition for Education Reform's 2005 report, said earlier this year: The "high failures and illiteracy rates" among Bahamian graduates in the public education system is "an embarrassment and severe national handicap" to this country's economic growth.
Mr Sears' argument was that the necessary across-the board budget cuts -- including education-- in the face of a severe economic crisis was "compromising investment in the human capital of our country."
What Mr Sears, and many others do not understand is that no matter how much money a government invests in education, well educated human beings are not necessarily the result.
Yesterday we had lunch with a US District Attorney -- a woman. She was discussing the education of her children, now all grown and doing brilliantly in their various fields. We were particularly interested in what she had to say about her only son. Educationally, he was a disappointment. He never brought back more than 20 per cent on his term exams -- something she considered an impossibility. But he did have one ambition -- he wanted to go to university and he knew he had to pass his finals to move on. By this time his parents had given up on him.
However, when his final results came in he had a perfect score on every paper that he had written.
What was the problem? Why had this young man given his parents so much heartburn for so many years?
The answer was simple: He was bored. He was bored with the tedium of the classroom and so his mind wandered. However, when he got to university he took the subjects that interested him, did brilliantly, and secured more than one degree. Today he is a successful lawyer.
No matter how much money was invested in him, he constantly failed because he had no incentive to learn.
At the beginning of the year, Mrs Janyne Hodder, spoke on education at a women's luncheon. If ever there was a person who exudes an enthusiasm and love for education, Mrs Hodder is an inspiration.
She is going to be a tremendous loss to this country when she leaves this year.
Although she claimed no expert knowledge on how to fix the Bahamas' educational problems, she did agree that a fix is needed, "not in words, but in actions."
"We don't need more criticism of the education system, criticism without proposals leads to defeatism." This is a point that we wish MPs would learn when speaking in the House.
If their criticism is not constructive then they would be doing everyone a favour to remain in their seats and keep their mouths shut.
Mrs Hodder then dared to dream of a different world of education, a world in which "we could stop blaming the past, the parents and the teachers, or the government and start focusing on experiments that take into account the challenges faced by parents, teachers and the government." There was merit in her suggestions-- suggestions to which we believe young people would respond with enthusiasm.
She pointed out that the overall level of educational attainment had to be increased. "We cannot have fewer than 15 per cent of our young people enrolled in higher education when every prosperous nation around us is moving to increase higher education participation rates, as high as 50 per cent in some countries."
Today, she pointed out, "even practical jobs require stronger skills. A car mechanic must now use computer data; and the stevedores of yesterday now sit astride huge straddlers that make use of sophisticated computer programmes to load and unload containers. This is skilled work, intense concentrated work."
"The economy," she said, "faces important structural challenges: We have a labour market that, in too many cases, pays higher wages for lower levels of skills than do our economic competitors. We have an overpopulated public service that turns on process management, one that is not results-oriented."
Mrs Hodder strongly supported "good jobs that pay good wages and help deliver better health, better family life and stronger communities. But for these types of jobs to be sustainable, we need a labour pool of educated innovators, skilled and educated people who add value to products or services. Such people will create the wealth without which we cannot sustain the relatively high standard of living The Bahamas enjoys."
It is now time for empty criticism to stop and innovative action to be taken.
June 07, 2010
tribune242 editorial
A political blog about Bahamian politics in The Bahamas, Bahamian Politicans - and the entire Bahamas political lot. Bahamian Blogger Dennis Dames keeps you updated on the political news and views throughout the islands of The Bahamas without fear or favor. Bahamian Politicians and the Bahamian Political Arena: Updates one Post at a time on Bahamas Politics and Bahamas Politicans; and their local, regional and international policies and perspectives.
