Newsweek’s meat, Jamaica’s reality

Sunday, August 22, 2010

We note with interest Newsweek Magazine's ranking of Jamaica as the top Caribbean country to live in terms of education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment.

According to our Friday edition, Jamaica ranked 47th out of 100 countries ahead of Cuba and the Dominican Republic, which were the only other two Caribbean countries on the list.

To their credit, the compilers of the list do not lay claim to perfection.

In their preface, they make it clear that the challenges of finding comparable data points for the world's richest and poorest countries compromised the quantity and quality of the metrics employed within the chosen categories.

Additionally, they point out that the list, which groups the countries by the size of their populations, represents a snapshot of how the countries looked in 2008 and 2009 through the lenses of the World Bank Atlas Method, which measures the Gross National Income per capita in US dollars.

Statistics aside, the exercise, which was designed to show which country offers the best opportunity to live a safe, happy, healthy and upwardly mobile life, raised -- in our minds at least -- some important issues concerning the allocation of State resources for the benefit of the citizenry.

Let's take, for argument's sake, the access that the majority of our nation's youth have to education from the earliest level up.

If we go by Newsweek's analysis, Jamaica is the most ideal Caribbean country in which to obtain a decent education.

Yet it is no secret that this ideal education is simply inaccessible to the thousands and thousands of students who do not beat the odds of earning a space in a sensible school by virtue of a near-perfect performance in the annual Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and whose parents do not have the means to make alternate arrangements for them. For them, tertiary education, which appears to be on its way back to becoming a privilege for the privileged, is but a dream.

In the ordinary scheme of things, good health -- mental and otherwise -- may be maintained by those who can afford to eat well and live in an environment that has not yet been overtaken by the garrison politics that govern so many of our inner-city communities.

Indeed, it is possible for some people to enjoy a high level of success in all of the categories examined by Newsweek.

The problem is that far too many can't, because those responsible for ensuring that the most basic level of infrastructure is in place to facilitate a fighting chance of survival, won't.

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COMMENTS (8)

Radcliffe Lewis
8/30/2010

Maybe the only reason why only Cuba, DR and Haiti are on the list is that most Americans mistake all the other islands as "Jamaica". (US gets baseball players from DR and they hate Cuba).
As for credibility, it is reported Newsweek was sold earlier this month for US $1. Now you know why the Washington Post got rid of it.

Ainsworth Cole
8/23/2010

george watson, that's what I mean when I say we have set a stick to beat our backs with. We spend so much time especially the poor that can't afford it at the police station, court house, hospitals that could be avoided, the little money & energy just spent out so, fi nutten, instead of using for productive enterprise and thrift. We could all be living it large like Newsweek seh let's cut out the foolishness and start to seriously improve our socio-economic situation and the place around us now.

Ainsworth Cole
8/23/2010

We can all have good quality of life if there is less serious crime, we would reap benefits of free health/education if there wasn't so much citizens at the hospital treating wounds caused by crime and voilent behavior, more money would be available for food,clothing,shelter etc if we never live a court house every day. Wouldn't our efforts be rewarded if we were all focus on jobs, improving communites & lives in a peaceful, productive way.Join One Love Jamaica on FB, onelovejamaica17@yahoo.com

george watson
8/23/2010

Ainsworth Cole, who is providing this "free" education and healthcare that you are glowing about? For your information NOTHING is free. It is us the taxpayers, (many retiress among them) who have to be forking out these amounts out of our pockets. I agree with your point though that "we should shun all negative acts and people and support/ encourage positiveness and goodness to become more productive and prosperous."
But is this a new ideal we should pursue starting 3 years ago?

george watson
8/23/2010

It would be interesting to know who Newsweek spoke to or what were their criteria for arriving at such a conclusion. It would be interesting to know what the thousands of parents who are sending their children back to school (FOR FREE EDUCATION NO LESS ) in two weeks think of this "chupidness."
But aren't we the happiest nation in the world?
NO PROBLEM!

Carpe Diem
8/22/2010

Editor, your analysis of the data presented is way off. If you go back and analyse the graph you will see that Cuba is way ahead in education (20), Health (29), Quality of Life (32), compared to Jamaica (63), (52), (62) respectively. Dom Rep at education (60) is also ahead of Jamaica. In fact the only reason why Cuba is so far behind Jamaica on the overall index is because it took hits on Economics (72) and Politics (96). All other carib countries seem to be missing from the index.

Ainsworth Cole
8/22/2010

Sorry, Bat Girl Newsweek is right, we have free education, free healthcare the basic foundation on which to build a truly develop economy and country. We all can enjoy the benefits and bountifulness of our wonderful island.We are the ones spoiling it for ourselves making it harder and more difficult for us. We have set a stick to beat our backs with. Jamaicans must learn to shun all negative acts and people and support/ encourage positiveness and goodness to become more productive and prosperous

Bat Girl
8/22/2010

So one minute we are the murder capital of the world, one of the most corrupt, over-run with gangs, guns, drugs and poverty. And now this? what's going on!! Sounds like they are having a laugh at our expense.

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Newsweek’s meat, Jamaica’s reality