WITH the start of the new school year just days away, discussion on education and how to deal with the myriad problems have understandably heated up.

So, for example, pages eight and nine of yesterday’s Sunday Observer are dedicated to the thoughts of new Jamaica Teachers’ Association President, Miss Nadine Molloy as expressed last week at the Observer Press Club.

We are especially struck by the story ‘More resources needed to tackle illiteracy’.

Precise figures are elusive, but 37 years after the visionary Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley launched a massive programme to eradicate illiteracy in Jamaica, it remains a major problem. Typical of happenings in Jamaica, Mr Manley’s almost evangelic campaign petered out after a few years, though the Jamaican Foundation for Lifelong Learning (JFLL), formerly the JAMAL Foundation, remains with us.

Of course, part of the reason for the dissipation of the adult literacy programme was the reality that no matter what was achieved at that level it was being undone by the release of thousands of functional illiterates from the formal school system on an annual basis.

It is estimated that just under 20 per cent of the adult population remains functionally unable to read. The 2008 Economic and Social Survey tells us that 68.9 per cent of Grade Four students achieved ‘mastery’ of the Literacy test, and 20.9 per cent fell in the ‘non-mastery’ category.

Miss Molloy is reported as calling for more appropriate training of teachers in literacy and numeracy skills, and urged the provision of incentives and bursaries as a means of facilitation.

Principal of Tarrant High School, Mr Albert Corcho states the obvious. Education policymakers, he says, must “look again at what is happening at the primary and early childhood levels. Too many students are coming through without the proper foundation”.

From this distance and from a layman’s point of view, it seems to us that the “coming through” of illiterates from primary schools to secondary schools is precisely what should not be allowed to happen. If someone is unable to read for whatever reason, why should he/she be moved on from the basic level?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that when these children move to higher-grade schools, often being asked to travel many miles at great expense, they simply fall through the cracks.

Overworked secondary school teachers, often with crammed classes, are forced to make hard choices: almost invariably they concentrate attention on those perceived to have real academic potential while the functional illiterates get token treatment.

In such circumstances, numerous teenage illiterates end up dropping out of school — many struggling with low self-esteem and related psychological problems. The lucky ones may end up in trade apprenticeship or small farming. Far too many drift into idleness and anti-social behaviour with devastating consequences for the wider society.

It seems to us that what is needed is focused and specialised attention at a much more intense level than currently takes place to deal with illiteracy at the primary school level. Our understanding is that unless a child is suffering from specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia, for example — in which case there are tried and proven remedies — there is no good reason for him/her being unable to learn to read.

The Ministry of Education, which presumably has the expertise, needs to so organise itself, its teachers, school communities and support organisations to deal with this problem once and for all.