Dear Editor,
I have been writing about how the educational system has failed students, if not society. Now it is opportune to offer some broad-stroke changes.
For starters, the barbarity of a score of subjects must cease forthwith. The previous Minister of Education waffled on that through talk of choice and of not limiting students’ visions and the like. In almost the same vein, the new minister and the ministry appear to be committed to what drains an already burdened system, through silence and continuance of what has hurt.
It should not need a mathematician or state planner to identify the issues of logistics and time required to timetable twenty subjects, if not more in the official daylight hours available. It is my understanding that two of the leading public schools in this country have insisted (made mandatory) that students read for a minimum of thirteen subjects. Repeat: thirteen subjects is the starting number. One student objected to this floor, and the parent also shared disagreement. Yet the school administration persisted and prevailed in signing-up that student for thirteen subjects. The examinations for the additional subjects were not taken, which diluted the final record of that student. I consider this as arbitrary and capricious behaviour on the part of that school’s seniors, which should be penalized. Clearly, the school leaders were focused on their own record and the annual media recognition that comes with it. This is being done at the expense of students’ academic future and physical well-being, as well as the army of underperformers left behind.
The Ministry of Education should not allow this minimum subject requirement/standard to stand. This overburden punishes thought processes; suspends reading; expels meaningful analysis; and places initiative in perpetual detention. This squeezes the average child right now, and the numerically outstanding student later. Reports are trickling in of individual (former high flyers) struggles beyond CXC. Society is also injured when it is forced to rely on academic zombies or the equivalent of mental blotting paper. I stand to be corrected on this, but using the last decade as source, I do not recall hearing of breaking developments or honourable mention of most of the one-time local eagles. What is this saying: Burnout? Old before their time? Bewildered and perhaps blue, too?
Second, there is the history of a one-time legendary Catholic education standard, and with accompanying practitioners. The priority was not the top five per cent of a class, but on the class in its entirety. It was also a time when the top twelve students were separated by less than a literal handful of marks. The academic and mental wealth gap was that narrow, the environment was that cultivated; the reality was that competitive; and all the participants were that driven by a spirit of keenness and excellence. There was dignity and striving in the classroom; there was the arrogance that comes from success. All of these components are what is needed here again; this is the challenge on how to incentivize and imbue with that esprit de corps and the zeal of a calling that speaks to caring.
Third, this is not all about officialdom or government. Impoverished grandparents inculcated the benefits of reading and writing, given their own threadbare contexts. At one time this society managed to do well with the human raw materials then available. For a long time those same materials left solid, sometimes memorable footprints wherever was travelled. This was energized by heady visions, a can-do attitude, a readiness to challenge, and freedom of the spirit. This originated first and foremost from a raging fire deep within; the home, the environment, and the culture also helped. These things cannot be taught. The traditions and system made things and people grow. Today, there is nonchalance over failure; this casual acceptance of mediocrity. This is self-taught; this is condoned too often in the recesses of the hearth.
Next, today there is the numbness of chalk and talk. Analysis, argumentation, assertiveness, application, and ambition are all overwhelmed by the crushing overhanging bulk of a score of subjects. Further, it could be posited that too many teachers know only the textbook; the greater story of life and its nuances are largely unknown; thus there can be neither articulating nor instilling of things beyond the covers of texts. This aspect of the education stultification is not aided in the least by the predatory nature of lessons. Something must give here.
Editor, in essence I am advocating that the curriculum be numerically restricted in the school; that the adults in the system and in the home act in the best interests of their young immature charges; and that there be radical revamping through re-educating the educator. This society could dearly use a cadre of workers who excel at being diagnosticians, or who can think on their feet, or who are several steps ahead of the front running pack. Such a rising tide can lift a whole lot of boats in its surge and wake.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
