There is no contesting Mrs. Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd's assertion about the substandard performance in Jamaica schools. Nor do we question her assessment that part of the problem rests with the quality of the pedagogy offered by too many teachers here.

What we do question, however, is Mrs. Coke-Lloyd's proposed solution: the wholesale recruitment of foreign teachers, presumably from developed countries, similar to the 'old days' when teachers from the dominions found it useful to spend a few years in the colonies.

For even assuming that Jamaica could afford to pay for the imports, we doubt that it could find enough foreign recruits to do the job. Indeed, we need only remind Mrs Coke-Lloyd of the shortage of teachers in many developed countries, given the trickle of entrants to the profession. The problem has grown so acute that Britain and the United States, in particular, have raided developing countries for their best teachers, such as was the case in 2003 when several hundred were recruited from Jamaica.

What we would have preferred to hear from the executive director of the Jamaica Employers' Federation (JEF), therefore, is a deeper analysis of the problems facing education and robust solutionsflowing therefrom. Indeed, this is an issue which we suppose would have been on the agenda of the JEF, as the organisation representing the country's employers. Such an institution would appreciate the necessity for a well-educated and trainable workforce to ensure a comparative advantage if the Jamaican economy is to be globally competitive.

Perhaps the JEF will tell us that we already know what the problems are; that they have been repeated often enough. More than 40 per cent of the children do not perform to acceptable standards at grade four. Perhaps a fifth of students need remedial numeracy and literacy help at grade six when they are about to enter high schools. There is a high dropout rate at the secondary level. Under 50 per cent of the students pass math at the CXC secondary level and nearly 40 per cent fail English. Less than half of Jamaican students pass five subjects at a single sitting at CXC. There is a weak foundation at the early childhood level.

The real issue is how Jamaica should go about fixing these problems, which is where the JEF, we feel, can make a significant contribution to the debate. A task force established by the Government earlier in the decade proposed a 10-year transformation package that would cost an incremental $21 billion a year. The deliverables would take Jamaica close to where it should be educationally if it wants to compete with the rest of the world.

However, in the two fiscal years since the plan was adopted, the project has been substantially underfunded and there has been no clear position from the Government or Opposition on how it is to be financed. That is where the JEF should be making a significant contribution: asking the parties for their solutions and placing on the table its own proposals and ensuring that all that are offered are rigorously assessed. The JEF might also wish to offer a framework for performance-based pay and other incentive programmes for teachers and schools. The point is that glib offerings won't fix education.