Time To Remove The Band-Aid From Education

Minister of Education, Ronald Jones

Minister of Education and Human Resources Ronald Jones and his Chief Education Officer Dr. Wendy Griffith-Watson have been in the news a lot in recent days; some of the news has been both good and unflattering. The Minister has been attracting negative comment on the talk shows regarding the tone he used to address parents on the opening day of school at the  pilloried St. Paul’s Primary School on Tuesday. It is not the first time that Minister Jones’s strident and abrasive delivery style has rubbed some Barbadians the wrong way. Just a few days earlier Chief Education Officer Wendy Griffith-Watson let ‘slip’ on the Sunday talk show that Springer Memorial School and St. Leonard’s have been trailing the other schools in academic performance (words to that effect). Subsequent feedback in the media has suggested that Dr. Watson was incorrect in her assertions. Both have been holding some warm licks for their comments.

BU supports the need for the Ministry of Education to do some major research into our educational system. Some changes need to be made but…) Barbadians have been treated to too much ‘old talk’ over the years which is unsupported by research. Is it too much to ask that after more than 30 years of significant co-education in our secondary schools, Barbadians still have no significant body of research to reference on this matter?

While we boast of our high literacy and education levels should Barbadians not be disappointed that our educational system has failed in the realm of developing a research and development based approach in its backyard?

The global arena has evolved to a very complex space which requires that our people are possessed of an intellectual capacity to ensure our survival and competitiveness like never before. We have allowed our schools to become overcrowded; it is not uncommon for classrooms in our primary system to average 30, an anecdotal position. We have not provisioned in any significant way to our children with special needs. We have not engaged in any significant research to determine why females should be coaching our boys cricket teams because of the exodus of men from the teaching service. We have not sought to create strategies to create programs to encourage reading back in our schools and homes to combat the influence of television, Internet and other modern day distractions. Now is a good time to highlight our disgust that the Public Library should be allowed to remain close since July 2006.

The former government conceived of EDUTEC which is still a good concept, the problem has been in its execution. Education along with health devours too much of the national budget to be managed from the seat of the pants of anybody. The recent initiative by the government to allow school children under 18 to ride free on public transport is fantastic! The Democratic Labour Party (DLP) is no stranger to rolling-out pioneering social programs. It was under the late National Hero of Barbados Errol Barrow that free education and school meals was introduced. We congratulate the government on a seamless rollout of the free bus service. We urge all in the process to remain vigilant to ensure the service is maintained at a high level.

The significance and the benefit to be derived from a free school bus service should not be underscored. We see this initiative as an attempt to engage in social reengineering in our society at a time when morals are slipping and slowly but surely started to wash away the values which have made Barbados strong. Not to be dismissed is the positive affect we anticipate the free bus service will have by countering the sub-culture linked to the mini-bus and ZRs. We are willing to bet that the initiative may save the next generation. Our only concern at this point in the young DLP tenure is the emphasis on rolling out social investment polices which we suspect are placing a strain on public finances. We will have to wait for the Central Bank reporting at the end of the year to properly support our suspicion. While social investment is required to ensure the good development of any social the need to sustain productivity levels must remain a priority. This is key at this time as we operate in challenging economic times.

Minister Ronald Jones we are pleased that our Minister of Education is grabbing the media spotlight even though it means the beautiful Minister of Family, Youth Affairs, Sports and the Environment Esther Byer-Sukoo has been relegated. The stakes are high for our little island, education was the lever used by the late Errol Barrow to enfranchise our people in the 60’s to drive our development, our success as a country remains the envy of many.

Let us fix the damn cracks!