Many students, too little space

BY INGRID BROWN Sunday Observer staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, September 05, 2010

As the education ministry continues to struggle each year to fit 50,000 students into the 39,000 available first form spaces in the nation’s high schools, Education Minister Andrew Holness said it has become very necessary to build a number of additional schools.

But even as many schools are full to overflowing, there are others which have less than a quarter of their capacity due to crime and urban migration.

Holness, who was guest at the Observer Press Club, held at the newspaper’s head offices in Kingston on Friday, said as a result there are some schools that will have to be rationalised.

“There are some schools that are underpopulated, some not economical to maintain, some have deteriorated so much that the entire school would have to be replaced,” he explained.

The education minister said while there are adequate spaces for primary schools, many of them are unusable.

“In areas like Portland, St Mary and St Thomas where urban drift has occurred, many of these schools are underpopulated,” he said.

Then there are schools such as Chetolah Park Primary in Kingston where, according to Holness, the space is inaccessible because of its crimeprone location.

“A good case in point is Chetolah Park Primary which is a beautiful school which can accommodate 1,000 students, yet less than 100 students are there because of the crime. Yet, we have to pay the principal and the teachers and that is not the only school with that problem,” he said.

On the other hand, the secondary institutions can only accommodate 67 per cent of the cohort.

According to Holness, many of the State-owned lands on which educational institutions are built will be transferred to the recently established National Education Trust Fund.

As these lands become a part of the Trust’s asset base, Holness explained that this would be used to guarantee bonds or be sold.

“We can’t cram all 50,000 students in the 39,000 available first form spaces, so I have to start building out schools and that is why we have established the National Education Trust Fund,” he explained.

“We will also be going to the Government to say give us some of those lands you have, especially those that we will be looking to build schools on in the future. So instead of the commissioner of lands holding those lands, give us now so they become part of the asset base of the trust,” Holness said.

Additionally, the trust will be appealing to persons to bequeath property to build more educational institutions.

The education minister said the Government is currently building schools in an incremental way, although the better option would be to secure loans to build them all at once and pay it off over a period of time.

Citing what happened in the 1960s, he said at that time the then Jamaica Labour Party Government borrowed US$7 million from the World Bank to build 50 junior high schools. In 1971, they again borrowed US$13 million to upgrade those schools to high schools and to build the now University of Technology, among other things.

“It now cost US$7 million to build just one school today,” he said, highlighting the challenge his ministry and the Government is now facing.

He argued further that when it comes to education there is a trade-off.

“Do I spend the money on paying teachers and develop the programmes, or do I spend the money on infrastructure?” Holness questioned.

“Once there is a trade-off, you know we are going to spend the money on teachers, then the second thing is on programmes and then what is left goes to infrastructure, so that is the challenge.”

But studies, according to Holness, indicate that while teachers determine the quality of education, it is the infrastructure that will determine the students’ potential.

The infrastructure, he continued, determines the outer boundaries of performance.

“So you could have a classroom with 20 students and one teacher and depending on how good that teacher is she could get high results. But the more you add students to that fixed classroom, the return starts to diminish,” he explained.

As such, he argued that to get an improvement you have to improve the infrastructure and increase the number of teachers.

“Clearly, within any fixed parameter of resources it is the teacher who determines the performance, but to move from levels of performance you have to improve the infrastructure, and that is what we face at the high school level,” Holness said.

Within the fixed parameter of the infrastructure, Holness said the teachers can be pushed to do better. However, in order to shift the level of performances the infrastructure has to be improved.

Government, he announced, is currently building or is getting ready to build schools in Manchester, Portmore, St Catherine, Red Hills, St Andrew and in St Ann where the demands are greatest.

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Many students, too little space