Ronald Thwaites | Jason’s fate

My boy Jason is one of the lucky ones. Although he lives three taxi rides from his new high school, costing $450 each way, his parents have a combined weekly income of around $40,000 and it is only Jason and his sister who have to be put out to school.

Including the transportation, it costs $2,000 per day when you include lunch money. Lunch with a drink at the fast-food concession with which his school unwisely contracted, now costs $900. Since he has to leave home before dawn, the porridge and a fritter which he buys for breakfast make up the tally. His parents try to find it because they see his acceptance at a “good high school” as their big hope – second only to migration- for the family’s upward mobility.

Work the maths and you will realise that their financing trapeze act will pop down next year when his sister goes to high school. The lady in the school office says Jason does not qualify for free lunch because he is not on the PATH programme. Jason’s promising future is about to become precarious. It is our fault and our peril.

HURTING OURSELVES

At the high school which a minister’s daughter attends, just to keep the institution going last year, the board had to inject $50 million from alumnae and parents “contributions”, over and beyond the $17,000 per capita contributed by the ministry. Suppose they didn’t have it?

And now the school is being instructed to send their money and their bills to government who will supposedly settle with their creditors. This is sheer lunacy which will rob the school of its credit and demean the quality of education offered by this distinguished institution. If the Church which owns the school has not completely swapped godliness for politeness, they will resist the lurch to expropriation. But being so afraid of government, will they?

There is an excellent primary school to which very many public servants manoeuvre to send their children, where a nurse, an additional guidance counsellor for 1,000 children, a librarian and a literacy coach are indispensable adjuncts to staff. But since they are not on the school’s establishment, who is to pay them if not the parents who can afford? Or what about the whole heap of schools where the population is reduced, but the salaried staff complement continues to be paid?

BEYOND THE PROPAGANDA

In Parliament last week the acknowledgement was not surprising that despite the rosy stories about the macro-economy and never forgetting the obscene salaries the legislators donated to themselves, there won’t be enough money to recover from Beryl’s ravages any time soon and that the economy may well slip into recession.

Led by an administration which is clearly gasping from lost momentum, and, like others in living memory, resorts to muzzling law suits and calumny against the independent media, this adds up to more problems for the huge socio-economic strata where Jason’s family is stuck. Who is managing better now at the shop or supermarket? Cost of living is now beyond the best efforts of Jason’s family.

WASTING WHAT WE HAVE

My contention is that a lot of our worries are caused by waste of existing resources and could be eased if we were brave and united enough to resolutely examine all of government expenditure, ministry, department and agency in turn, over three years, to determine value for expenditure, evaluate spending priorities against the standard of the common good; set and observe measurable targets against which tenure and reward will depend. Sadly, our political culture prevents this zero-budgeting exercise.

Last week I pointed to Professor Patterson’s truthful observation that Jamaica is spending reasonable sums on education which do not yield commensurate results. This hot-hot potato cannot be addressed without political comity. So we continue to waste and underperform no matter how many consultants prescribe alternatives.

The same is true throughout the public bureaucracy. Watch the current splurge on road rehabilitation to afford which we will forward – spend the as yet unearned food money of the future.

The condition of major and minor roads can hardly be worse. The inexplicable division between main and municipal roads allows for the evasion of responsibility for maintenance. Now that big-big money is to be thrown at them, what are the standards for road rehabilitation and who will monitor them?

Who will prevent the contracts being given to the hacks and kick-backers who will use sub-standard base material overlaid with quarter-inch pretty cover which will barely last beyond the election deadline?

The public see and know how these runnings go. Not to excuse them, but the experience of wide-spread corruption emboldens those who would dare to extort the contractor repairing Mandela Highway last week.

Becoming one like them- street-smart, miseducated and disillusioned will likely be Jason’s fate if we don’t keep him in school and remove the avoidable obstacles to his flourishing. Do we dare to ask ourselves why, despite the touted cracking of gangs, publicized convictions and extra-judicial killings, there is a constant and unyielding resupply of scammers and violence producers?

AT LAST

At the weekend the police officer in charge of traffic law enforcement was quoted as calling for better training for drivers as essential to road safety. At last! Without this, all the hand-wringing about road disorder which so informs and reflects general national culture, serves little purpose. There are thousands of drivers who, untrained and untested, are therefore psychologically, cognitively or physically impaired as to be unfit to hold a permit. Consider the deliberate flouting of the law by most motorcyclists and prove me wrong. So how many more deaths before an end to bogus licenses and the instituting of mandatory retraining?

PARALYSIS OF DISUNITY

What is in the subliminal consciousness of those who curse out journalists and publishing houses without advancing and, if warranted, prosecuting specific instances of bias or falsehood? Never a reasoned refutation of a report but reflexively a denunciation. We encourage division and nourish disunity as if those evils were virtues.

What lessons are the likes of the struggling young Jasons to learn from us about truth, reconciling disagreements and advancing common causes?

“Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked…nor sit in the company of scorners”. (Psalm 1)

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com