Henry Jeffrey (‘What results can we realistically expect from the education system given its allocation?’ SN, March 12) has correctly identified the current preponderance of focus on operational and procedural rather than substantive issues. But has he betrayed the limits of his energies as a former politician when the furthest goal he takes the trouble to list is “outcomes expected”? The unmentioned execution, feedback and analysis of results should not ever be possibly relegated to an ‘etc.’
Perhaps that is why Dr Jeffrey obviously still feels that the glorious education system of the 1950s and 1960s is a “myth… still being perpetuated by the mass media and even the international community.” It is true that not many in those days had the opportunity to go to high school, but almost all came out of primary school knowing to read, write and do arithmetic well enough to usually realize when they were being fooled. That was the valued outcome of the vast proportion of the education money being spent on primary education.
Nowadays, there are still too many third formers who have grave difficulty doing even these basics. And grade slips at CSEC and GCE (the world over) have long failed to mention that F word – ‘fail.’ A dose of the truth had centuries before been the reliable eye-opener for the young adult to the consequences of underperforming during school days. I have often witnessed how a well deserved F in the first semester of university can galvanise the student into passing in the second and into not slacking in the rest. Good teachers will treat such students as having failed the subject — not life while it is still there.
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
