NOWHERE in Caricom are extra lessons as developed as here, yet Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago get better results in exams. Our parents spend more and get less. There is a massive market in extras because those who recommend them sell them, as most parents want the best for kids and because we are poor.

I was dilating on the evils of scrap metal robbers at a wake when I was blindsided by a lady friend: “What about your extra lessons schemes?” she said. “You suspend scrap metal, but why not the extra lessons industry to level the playing field between rich and poor and save me money?” she continued. I ignored her.

“Scrap metal is a depleting resource. We are not and were never an industrial nation so we have very little scrap, and our manufacturing firms have exported their stillage long before criminals discovered scrap. The industry crept upon us and is now a monster,” I said.

As I paused, my nemesis started: “Extra lessons is an industry which crept upon us and now rakes in millions. Tax it, regulate it or stop it!” A “nine night” with Appleton is no time for edgy questions. Me: “Scrap metal will make a few rich and all of us a little poorer, but education enriches the individual and the entire nation.” She would not be ignored. Why can’t I be off duty? Does a garbage man have to clean the trash when he is at a party having fun? Why me? This lady was a terrier. I gave in.

Extra lessons is a multi-million dollar industry and its finest expressions are found in the Jamaica Observer. For the price of a newspaper you get affordable extras to help with exams. There are high-priced classes in schools, private homes and the twisted metal sign in town offering “hairdressing, GSAT, CSEC and CAPE lessons upstairs, fully guaranteed” is visible. My lady friend’s highend extra lessons class rakes in near $1m spare cash each year.

Education is the best investment. It is the only way to achieve equity for large numbers of people. A hundred thousand poor people can get an education simultaneously at no detriment to each other. Only one in a hundred thousand DJs or sportsmen will make it in “dog eat dog” rivalry. Education is an upward leveller. Many read a degree, graduate, take a job, migrate, start a business, live well; the chance of 50 youth making life by “cutting a tune”, selling “high grade” or running fast is remote. Hundreds of us are “first in the family to go to high school and get a degree” persons. I recommend education highly and Cabinet must invest more. When the chips are down the best investment is education!

I was badgered by this mother hen and I now know “extras” cost her about $250,000 per year — gas included. She feels like a victim of “neo-capitalist professional extortion parading as social service”. The extra lessons industry is fuelled by poverty, insecurity and is a major threat to social justice, access and equity.

Edwin Allen and Florizel Glasspole fought to open quality education to the poor. Extra lessons could close it. The JTC Bill must ensure that the channels are kept open. We must support the poor so that they can stay the course and read degrees in areas labour market forecasts indicate — not the degree they “like,” or they will remain liabilities on the state with degrees. The disadvantaged have one shot, so choose your course well or you may die with a degree, jobless and poorer than your parents.

A young lady at teachers’ college has a sister, a trained teacher who could not get a job for years. Said lady did a year and emptied the family coffers. Read this dialogue:

Me: Have you applied for a student loan?” She: “I don’t really like to borrow money.” Me: “So why are you here to see me?” She: Silent, looks at the floor then the sky. Me: “So how is your sister?” She, smiling proudly: “She has two babies but is still looking a teaching job.” Me: “And you choose teaching?” She: “Well, I like teaching.” Me: “What do you like about it?” She: “I have a child and I need job flexibility and income.” I was flabbergasted as she spoke of the job of a government teacher not teaching. Me: “But your sister has no job since she left college.” She went silent. She wants a loan to do a course which has few job prospects. Me: “When you pitch for a loan you must have some idea of how you will pay it back. Do you?” She gives extra lessons on her mother’s porch and will check back with me. Why, Lord?

Those who taste the benefits of education ensure their children get one. Sadly, many parents who have never tasted do not make the sacrifice. We have to help them. The extra lessons industry fuels inequality in our society. It’s the Lance Armstrong story writ small. It’s not the competition of the best cyclists, but of the best chemists. Extras is a competition of the best teachers, not the best students! Meanwhile, thousands of teachers give effort at no charge to get students fit for exams. Some do not have energy to help their own children at home. They do God’s work. Fairness and equity may be extras for all or extras for none. Idealism?

This lady says her kids lose teaching days by field trips, training days, product trials, awards, sick, rain, no water at school, so extras just cover normal lessons for which she pays taxes already. She: “What are you going to do, Mr Big Shot?” She says extra lessons are a wealth tax as the poor can’t pay. Before I respond she takes off: “Fix it, big man!” The Devil sent her as my personal antichrist. The rich are able to afford extra lessons yet if all parents spend more time, their kids and the kids of the uneducated will still come last. Fix it. How?

Do we ban extras? Insist that each child attends school full 190 days and every teacher gives full 190 days the taxpayer pays for? This lady has a list of missed days and would claim days without teaching from her taxes. She says every civil servant should be given the privilege teachers get and charge the public a fee for dealing with their case outside of work hours. Stands to reason. She said some kid gave hers flu so she missed three days’ work. “Who pays me for that?” Don’t mess with mother hen’s chicks. Stay conscious, my friend!

Dr Franklin Johnston is a strategist, project manager and advises the minister of education.

franklinjohnstontoo@gmail.com