Stephen VasciannieTHE JAMAICAN Parliament is in the course of revising that part of the Constitution which pertains to basic rights and freedoms of individuals in Jamaica.
Thus, in the wake of International Human Rights Day, and related activities, the Government has tabled in Parliament the Charter of Rights (Constitutional Amendment) Bill.
The Charter of Rights Bill (or the Draft Charter of Rights) is designed to replace the current Chapter III of the Jamaican Constitution: in brief, the Draft Charter retains several rights now enshrined in Chapter III, but introduces certain new rights and modifications to existing rights. One significant area of change on paper concerns the right to education. In the Jamaican Constitution as it now stands, no provision is made to ensure a right to education for the country's citizens. The Draft Charter of Rights proposes to change this situation. Accordingly, draft Section 13(2)(m) seeks to guarantee the right of every child "who is a citizen between the ages of six and 15 years to free tuition in a public education institution, at the primary level". For the purposes of this right, a public education institution is defined as an educational institution which offers primary level education and is maintained or assisted by the Government.
From the perspective of international law, the decision to enshrine the right to primary education in the Jamaican Constitution is consistent with the country's treaty obligations. More specifically, Jamaica is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which stipulates, in Article 13, that everyone has the right to education, and that, with a view to realising this right, "primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all". As Jamaica ratified this treaty in 1975, it is fair to suggest that the local constitutional rule on education is now catching up with the country's international obligations.
But, of course, constitutional rules and international obligations do not constitute the entire picture. It is, after all, one thing to create paper rights, and quite another to ensure that those rights are adequately safeguarded in practice. The question, then, is whether the Jamaican State is performing adequately with respect to the provision of education for its citizens.
This question covers a broad range of issues, but certain conclusions are suggested by statistical evidence. According to the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report 2000, Jamaica's literacy profile may be summarised as in Figure 1:
Thus, in respect of both adult and youth literacy rates (86.0 per cent and 93.5 per cent), Jamaica's position is roughly comparable to that of Latin American and Caribbean countries (LACs) as a group, while it is significantly better than the figures reported for developing countries as a group.
One may also find some grounds for optimism in recent statistical indicators concerning primary school enrolment, again as reported by the UNDP, with figures current as of 1997. This is demonstrated in Figure 2.
The Figure 2 statistics indicate that, at the end of 1997, 95.6 per cent of those in the primary school age group were enrolled in Jamaican schools. Again, the Jamaican figures show rough equality with Latin American and Caribbean countries as a group, and are superior to those of developing countries as a group; they are also approaching the high levels of enrolment to be found in developed countries as a group (denoted above as High Human Dev.).
At the secondary level, however, Jamaica's figures are less impressive. They may be superior to those pertaining to Latin America and the Caribbean, and to developing countries generally, but they fall very significantly behind the enrolment statistics for developed countries. In a globalised economic environment, where Jamaicans have to compete with persons from developed countries at the technical level, the statistics for secondary enrolment indicate a major area of weakness for us.
More generally, it should be noted that raw figures for literacy and enrolment can only indicate, very roughly, whether necessary conditions for a proper education are in place. So, for example, the statistics on enrolment and literacy say nothing about the quality of education on offer.
The Planning Institute of Jamaica's Social and Economic Survey 1999 (covering the period relevant for the tables above) indicated that, for the first sitting of the Grade Four Literacy Test of the National Assessment Programme, 49.3 per cent of the candidates did not satisfy the examiners as to their facility with the rudiments of literacy. This is a frightening figure: approximately one-half of the students enrolled in primary school could not read or write after four years of schooling.
Still with respect to quality control, one has the impression that the 69.8 per cent enrolment figure for secondary school masks a significant layer of under-performance in such schools. At the CXC level, Jamaican students are consistently out-performed by their counterparts in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, and even without comparisons, results for basic subjects such as English and Mathematics raise serious cause for concern. At some schools, several students, after five years of secondary education, are encouraged to sit CXC examinations for only one or two subjects; and in some cases, as the Minister of Education noted recently, oral communication skills leave much to be desired.
So, it is important to acknowledge the right to education in the Jamaican Constitution, as this may help to bolster efforts at improvement in the system. We should not assume, however, that the mere insertion of a paper right can take us very far. Not at all: students and teachers today work under forms of economic and social pressure that undermine potential at almost every step of the way.
Improvements in education will not come about by rhetoric. Progress can only be made towards full realisation of the right to education through the dedication of increased expenditure in that area, and through the implementation of carefully structured measures at each level of the school system.
Figure 1
Adult Literacy Rate Youth Literacy Rate
(% age 15 and above) (% age 15-24)
1998 1998
| Jamaica | 86.0 | 93.5 |
| LACs | 87.7 | 93.7 |
| All Developing | 72.7 | 84.1 |
Figure 2
Primary Age Group Secondary Age Group
Enrolment (%) Enrolment (%)
| Jamaica | 95.6 | 69.8 |
| LACs | 93.3 | 65.3 |
| All Developing | 85.7 | 60.4 |
| High Human Dev. | 99.3 | 94.3 |
Stephen Vasciannie, a UWI lecturer, is currently visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University in Britain.
