THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE ABILITY of a society to provide more and better education for its members can be regarded as one of the objectives of economic development. Moreover, it can also be a significant instrument in achieving development. Jamaica, as a developing country must stress education in its development plans. In fact, the goal of national education ought to be a logical extension of the independence struggle.
Availability of education must be seen as a basic human right, a freeing of peoples' minds parallel to the achievement of political independence from colonial bondage. It therefore follows that the importance of a build-up of human capital must be stressed.
EDUCATION AN INVESTMENT
In this regard, education is an investment in people a sacrifice of immediate consumption in order to create a more productive workforce in the future. At the recently concluded 65th People's National Party annual conference, the Prime Minister pointed to the fact that "I put more children in basic school than anybody else; there are more children in primary school in my time than anybody else. Three times the number of students are in university today than in anybody else's time". And, indeed, impressive figures can be produced to show the growth of enrolments at the primary and secondary, and even at the tertiary stages.
However, what such aggregate figures conceal is the qualitative nature of the education that is being provided - and both from the humanitarian and economic standpoints, questions of who are being educated, how, and where, are imperative. For education to act as an instrument of development policy its intended approach should be to produce the well-rounded individual who has been taught both how to learn and equally trained in specific skills - encompassing both the humanities and the vocational approach. All too often, the educational system, as well as the general development strategy equates development with industrialisation exclusively.
Then again, education must be fully integrated in the general development strategy to salvage the problem of 'educated' unemployment. For, there is little point in increasing the availability of trained personnel unless policy is oriented towards creating job opportunities for them. Only with such radical reform can education fulfil its potentially significant role in mobilising human resources.
For the time being, it often serves to create further resistance to change, further inequity in society and serves to weaken development impulses rather than to inculcate a powerful drive towards development.
I am, etc.,
DEVON K. NELSON
butvenus@yahoo.com
6 Roseneath Mews
Kingston 6.
