FORMER university lecturer Professor Errol Miller last week called on Jamaican educators to concentrate on cultivating good character traits in their students rather than on emphasising intelligence.

“The amount of intelligence required to succeed in life is overestimated,” he said.

“We need to stop worshipping at the altar of high intelligence. What we have to realise is that more important than intelligence is character,” he continued.

The professor was speaking at last Wednesday’s church service to honour former principal of Alpha Primary, Rosemarie Vernon, at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kingston.

He made it clear that he was not averse to intelligence in the process of education. He said, however, that the acquisition of theoretical knowledge in the absence of moral standards and discipline, was not equivalent to success.

“One problem we have in Jamaica is that we have too many educated ‘jinnals’…The perpetrators of white-collar crimes are not illiterates,” he said.

Professor Miller, a former principal of the then Mico Teachers’ College, complained that the problem with many of today’s youth is that they want to enjoy the fruits of success without putting in the requisite labour.

“We’re living in an age where young people want success without sacrifice,” he said.

In order to curb this increasingly popular habit, the professor suggested that educators establish standards to foster disciplined behaviour in their students.

“The school must stand for something. There must be some set of standards agreed on by teachers, parents and students…Human society cannot exist without boundaries and limits and students have to know their limits and their freedoms,” Miller said Wednesday.

While he did not imply that anything had changed today, he suggested that was the kind of environment which existed at Alpha Primary under the leadership of Vernon. During Wednesday’s church function, Miller praised his former educator colleague for having maintained the standards of the school.

“Thank you for receiving a school with a great reputation and maintaining that reputation,” said he, describing the honoree as an “outstanding teacher, an excellent administrator, a kind, caring person” and a “stalwart leader”.