Dear Editor,

I support Mark Wignall’s comments in his October 28 column and his questions about the state of Jamaica’s illiteracy and the inability to find solutions to these problems. He wrote: “… with Jamaica’s biggest problem – tens of thousands of undereducated, unemployed men and women, many of whom have lost all hope. They all want a taste of the pie, as well they should; but being economically unviable, they have to resort to menial work, pressuring family members, begging, or turning to violent criminality.”

I commend the Ministry of Education for its untiring efforts to improve our literacy rate by providing more schools, more teachers, more students, more exams. But these have proved inadequate. In fact, it would seem impossible to accept that squeezing more meat into the crust will make a better pie. Indeed, making a better pie requires seasonings and other ingredients to complete the tasty whole.

Likewise, I think it is necessary for our efforts at national literacy to include a variety of education options, some of which will be innovative and have a broad reach. For instance, we can consider a programme that teaches illiterate adults with babes-in-arms to read and teach the child at the same time – it’s easy. We could have a “Story Time”, when a famous person reads to the nation episodes of a storybook distributed free to all who wish it. We could use some of the Government TV and radio broadcast time for such daily programmes. We could have a competition for singers to compose the times tables 1-10.

We could consider streaming boy students by interest, rather than grades in a common curriculum. Boys are interested in cars, computers, music, building things, growing things. Is there enough opportunity in the “regular” curriculum for them to branch off and specialise in these skills at primary and secondary levels, without being sent to the lowly regarded “technical” schools? There is a period between ages seven to 10 when children are at peak curiosity level and still believe that the world can be theirs. How are the opportunities to be trained to accomplish their future dreams being realised? How are they being enabled to use their curiosity to explore the outer limits of their creativity? Must they all fit into the one-size-fits-all curriculum, or fail to become “educated”?

In other words, if – like Mark’s friend Breshey – they cannot speak, who puts a paintbrush or a guitar or a hammer in their hands, so they can survive?

Just my thoughts, as Parents’ Month begins.

Barbara Blake Hannah

Kingston 6