THE REPORT in Wednesday's Gleaner that more than 60 per cent of the recent applicants to the Canadian Farm Work Programme were unable to read and write is but one more evidence of the myriad problems that need urgent attention in this country.
Discussions and analyses in local media on the declining education standards and performance tend to focus on the impact this will have on our young people and their ability to perform in an increasingly technologically-driven world.
But this report suggests that even at the very basic levels of being able to read packages labelled 'cucumbers', 'carrots' and 'tomatoes', our people, and in particular our men, are having problems.
Perhaps some of these applicants are victims of a belief that all that was required of them is dexterity with a machete to eke out a livelihood. Others may have been drop-outs from school at an early age either because their parents could not afford to send them or because little value was placed on "book learning" for what they saw themselves doing in the future. Still others may have fallen by the wayside because of a perceived inability to handle lessons in basic reading and writing.
Many would have discovered with the passage of time that their inability to read and write has put them at a disadvantage not only in finding employment but even when they do, in understanding basic instructions and even their contracts with employers.
Yet the report highlights something that is fundamentally disturbing about what is happening in the country's education system. A few generations ago, a significant number of Jamaicans who had not been educated beyond what was called the 'Elementary School Level' had a basic grasp of reading, writing and arithmetic to enable them to function reasonably well in the society. Gradually we have been losing in that area to the point where adults, many of whom would have gone to school for at least five years, are unable to recognise simple words.
The sociological aspect of more women farm work applicants being literate than men, points also to what has been evident throughout the rest of the society - women are being encouraged or are having the insight to invest in things that really matter while our men have developed and are developing a skewed values system. Until this is arrested and reversed, we will continue to see a repetition of the phenomenon highlighted in the Wednesday report. We are not convinced at this stage that the answer is in a revival of the JAMAL adult literacy programme of the Michael Manley era.
That was not proved to be either efficient or effective. We have to accept that an entire generation has been lost in that regard. We simply must get back to basics ensuring that from the very earliest stages of their development our children are given the tools to read and write so that they can function in the Jamaican society and the wider world.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
