EVOKING MEMORIES of Michael Manley's famous 'free education' speech in Parliament, which years ago electrified the nation before falling by the wayside for being too ambitious, Prime Minister Patterson, in his Budget speech on Tuesday, articulated his own education revolution. He announced that $5 billion would be diverted from the National Housing Trust to a special fund which, as he put it, will "transform the education system once and for all".
We doubt that the transformation which the Prime Minister tried to make the centrepiece of his Budget speech will carry the impact of his predecessor. For one thing, Mr. Patterson had some dodging to do about his promise, prior to the last general election, to abandon cost-sharing. It turns out that the cost for this, estimated to be $2 billion, is too expensive so it will be continued with some relatively minor concessions.
What is of greater concern, however, is the Prime Minister's priorities for the new $5 billion fund, priorities which include the upgrading of 200 schools and the expansion of eleven high schools by September to provide an additional 2,400 places. Furniture will be provided for 600 schools and three of the expanded high schools will be equipped with science labs. All very well and good, improvements so visible the
programme is likely to play well politically.
But overall we found the presentation somewhat unfocused because, as welcome as an additional $5 billion for education is, the Prime Minister seems to have missed the central cause of the present education crisis, namely what to do about early childhood education. There are some 400 untrained teachers in the basic school system, ill-equipped to give young Jamaicans between ages two and six the educational and emotional start in life which would allow them to take advantage of further education. The Prime Minister disclosed no plans for how to deal with this problem. Building new schools and providing new furniture is fine, but it is more important to ensure that the children who will use these facilities are being taught by appropriately trained teachers. In trying to set up a properly functioning hospital, for example, what sense would it make to provide state-of-the-art equipment, but not a word about the qualification of doctors and nurses.
To give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he is
leaving it to his Minister of Education, who will speak in the Sectoral Debate on May 10, to refocus on early childhood education, and to set out clearly what steps will be taken to ensure that this sector gets the attention and funding it deserves. We cannot fix the problems in education without fixing early childhood education.
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