THE FACT that three of our students have placed fourth in the world in three GCE A level subjects is cause for celebration. The three, Kingston College's Adrian Nembhard and Campion College's Ryan Brooks and Jodi Black, were ranked fourth among students from more than 160 countries who sat the examinations in June 2002.
It is not a first, as several students did equally well in the various external examinations last year; but we think it is time that the recognition usually reserved for the icons of sport, music and other entertainment be given for academic achievement.
Performance in the classroom may not match the sporting arena for spectator excitement. But mental agility will ultimately value more in the long run than physical prowess.
It is worth recalling, however, the national excitement evoked by Jody Ann Maxwell's performance in the 1998 Scripps Howard Spelling Bee Championship in Washington DC.
In the latest achievement, Adrian aced the Geometrical and Mechanical Drawing examination, Jodi aimed high in Economics and Ryan showed that one does not have to be a native speaker to do extremely well in a foreign language. In fact, according to education officials, he beat out thousands of native Spanish speakers to make his country, school, family and friends proud.
The achievements of these three students may help lift the cloud which often hangs over an education system wracked with student violence, complaints of inadequate facilities, few resources and overworked and underpaid teachers. The system has also been battered from the yearly exodus of teachers to schools overseas.
All of which makes it appropriate that education, unusually, has grabbed the spotlight in the current election campaign. We hope that the contending claims about the appropriate policies to follow will at least create consensus that education at all levels is vital to development.
It is critically so at the most basic level where youth look to role models and are more easily swayed by the entertainment of sport and music. They should also have student models such as Adrian, Ryan and Jodi that they can strive to emulate.
