Do we need to have a review board to test the veracity of the information in school textbooks? Or should we simply accept whatever is printed just as long as students can pass the examinations? Should absolute truth be confined to mathematics and science or should factual information be included in every textbook whatever the subject? Does it matter if there is a great variation between what is taught in textbooks and what is factual?

Many times when adults make incorrect statements, it is not entirely their fault. They were misled by false information given to them by their teachers and written in their textbooks while at school which has convinced them for life that the wrong information is correct.

I recall a geography teacher, a white Englishwoman who taught me for a short time in my senior years at Jamaica College more than 40 years ago. In those days there was no CXC and we wrote the England-based General Certificate of Education examinations set by either London or Cambridge universities. And all of our textbooks were imported from England. Even the West Indies History textbooks written wholly or partially by Jamaicans were printed in England.

This British-born geography teacher knew that some of the information about the Caribbean in our geography textbook was incorrect. It turned out that she knew the author of the book, as he was a lecturer at the very university in England where she sat for and received her degree. Let us call the book’s author “Mr So-and-So”.

One day in class she said: “The problem with old “So-and-So” is that he has never been to the Caribbean but he wanted to be a professor so he wrote a book as part of his plan for a promotion.” So the textbook misinformation racket is not just a Jamaican phenomenon, nor is it something that started yesterday. It exists in many parts of the world and has been going on for decades, if not centuries.

But unfortunately here in Jamaica we sometimes copy the wrong things. This business of lazily writing a book just for profit or promotion can be seen over the years in many ways. For example, most of the West Indian history that we were taught in order to sit the GCE examination in those days was mainly about slavery with all the details of the Middle Passage and of sugar estates. That was because the book-keeping records were all there and simply re-worded into textbooks.

No details were included about the people from which we originated because that sort of research would have been too much work. Fortunately, Marcus Garvey and Dr Walter Rodney did that research about Africa. But we should also include the history of Indians, Chinese, Jews, Lebanese and Europeans.

High school textbooks in Jamaica are changed almost every year and the well-worn excuse is that they are upgrading and improving the subject. With tongue in cheek some might say that they are trying to correct the misinformation that I complain about, hence the constant change of textbooks. I believe that it is about some people getting their turn to earn extra money. But it is not fair to parents to have to find this money every year. They should be able to hand down books to younger children or sell the books to the school’s book rental scheme. It is time that there is a law with penalties to prevent this racket.

In addition to vital information being left out of the textbooks, equally disturbing is the fact that misinformation is being repeated. I give three examples. First, Sir Alexander Bustamante never went to Spain as a child and was never adopted by a Spanish governor. This was a tale that Bustamante concocted but which was refuted by his cousin Norman Manley.

Second, the section of Jamaica’s constitution that addresses our national symbols does not speak to a national dish but to a national fruit which is the ackee. And third, the original meaning of the Jamaican flag is still being taught although this was changed in late 1996. The meaning of the black part of the flag used to be hardships, but today it stands for people, strength and creativity. Readers may also know other misinformation that is printed in textbooks.

Last week Thursday in my column, “September morning”, I mentioned that Jamaican crocodiles swim in sea water. I do not blame anyone at any media house for refusing to investigate a report of crocodiles in the Kingston Harbour as I had suggested to two media houses some 20 years ago. We were all “mistaught” that crocodiles do not swim in sea water.

But very few if any of those “qualified experts” from England who wrote the textbooks that included their incorrect version of crocodile psychology ever visited Jamaica to do research. As part of the feedback to my column last week, I understand that up to last month, crocodiles have been seen swimming in the Kingston Harbour as far as the gypsum factory on the Norman Manley Highway.

By the way, today is 42 years since Jamaica converted from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com