THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE RESULTS of a recent UWI study apparently show that it is a mistake to educate the Jamaican people, as this results in an increase in crime (See 'Make crime unprofitable Part II' in The Sunday Gleaner 17/10/04).
Before we kick all the kids out of school, however, it might be useful to look at how the figures were obtained.
Essentially it was shown that in spite of increased secondary school enrolment, social inequity and consequently violent crime increased, thus, education causes crime!
This study by Professor Al Francis and Kaycea Campbell is seriously flawed. It equates enrolment with education, at a time when many secondary school leavers are functionally illiterate and 80 per cent of them last year did not pass even one CXC.
If Francis and Campbell had compared UNSUCCESSFUL school leavers, i.e. those who had passed no CXCs in 1993, with those who passed no CXCs in 2003, I suspect that they would have found an increase in the number of unqualified school leavers.
An increase in the number of unqualified, frustrated youth could then be posited as the reason for an increase in crime. Perhaps what the study shows is that the miseducation of the Jamaican people is the nation's greatest problem.
I am, etc.,
P.R. SCOTT
Gordon Town, St. Andrew
