MINISTER of Education Ronald Thwaites has challenged the people of West Rural St Andrew to place importance on education in their households, emphasising that it was Jamaica’s number one priority.

Thwaites, who was guest speaker at the annual West Rural St Andrew Education Scholarship awards ceremony last Wednesday in Stony Hill, said that a major effort ought to be made to focus the youth on learning, which may require a tweaking of current behaviour in the new dispensation.

“People of West Rural St Andrew, we have to change our values in the society. Bussing a tune can’t help you to live good when you step up in life. That can only help you a little bit, it’s better you have the English and Maths,” the Roman Catholic Deacon told the scores who attended the function hosted by Member of Parliament Paul Buchanan.

“Young ladies of West Rural to be strong, good women, depends more upon the beauty of your personality, the radiance of your smile and the openness of your spirit. You don’t have to take off 9/10th of your clothes and wiggle down any roadway, half drunk. That’s not what is required, that’s not going to make you happy. When all is said and done we want people to understand the difference between substance and poppy show. What you have in your head today is substance. You don’t have to be what you are not, you have to be what you are and we are fearsomely and wonderfully made by Almighty God,” he said.

The first-time Cabinet minister also told mainly the women that maintaining their cultural identities while focusing on education, would only redound to their benefit and that of the nation.

“We have to be proud of who we are, whatever our colour is, whatever the texture of our hair is. The beauty of the Jamaican woman doesn’t have to be bleached to reach anywhere and you don’t have to buy any donkey hair from Brazil. Education is the only answer and I am proud of Paul Buchanan and all those associated with him because what they are getting into our heads with a new emphasis, is a recognition that our future lies with ourselves. We have been living on somebody else’s resources, we have been borrowing money ’till nobody will lend us and now we realise what we have to do is to do better with what we have.

“I am glad when I look around and see some boys among the girls, because our boys are lagging behind the girls by about 20 per cent in the education system. And our girls don’t want when they grow up to have to marry some ‘so-so’ man. Them want somebody who really can be their equal and who will stay with them and keep them and love them and mind their children, because that is true manhood… not gold teeth and chaparita.

“Good education also means that you have manners and character. I am saying to the teachers in West Rural St Andrew, ensure discipline in your school, because slackness and education can’t go together, and that means that you must try to be punctual, try to improve attendance, that our children must be taught to say ‘yes sir and no, ma’am’, to honour the flag, behave themselves decently and there will be no parent brawling against teacher and children look and say ‘eh eh, is that how them must behave’,” Thwaites told the audience.

Buchanan, who disclosed that 380 students from the constituency had received education support under the programme, pledged to continue to project education as one of the important planks of development in the constituency.

“This year there was a 42 per cent increase in maths passes at Oberlin High School,” Buchanan said of the only high school in the constituency.

“I will keep the education light at the forefront of what we do. For the first time in Jamaica, there is no need for any individual to say ‘I cannot learn a skill because I can’t afford it’.

“I have never seen a good electrician or a good plumber out of work. In eight weeks you can do a course that can qualify you for the job market. In these times we should be pushing the leadership of education when we have the Internet, something that I never had when I was attending Wolmer’s Boys’ School,” said Buchanan, a first-time MP.

Thwaites in the meantime continued to bang away at the heads of those present, that education must be the focus going forward.

“This is a big occasion. If you found oil under Stony Hill it wouldn’t help you if you didn’t have an education. Money can go through any system like a dose of salts, but an education is an investment that you are going to keep with you for the rest of your life and that’s the dividend that you are giving to these children you are honouring today and the many, many other hundreds, indeed thousands in this constituency and elsewhere.

“These children have done well at GSAT and CXC. The GSAT ones are going on to high school. Many times we feel that things are not going well in our land, and it’s true. But one of the big answers is towards full education.

“When I went to school when Jamaica was declared independent over 50 years ago, 10 per cent of the young people at age seven had a place in a high school. The people who were in St George’s College with me, look more like me than you,” he said, pointing to his light-skinned pigmentation, as against the darker ones of most in the room at the Country Style Restaurant along the suburb’s main road.

“And it wasn’t because there were any prejudices,” Thwaites went on. “The places simply weren’t there. This year, with all of the difficulties of our economy, 97 per cent of all of the grade seven students will have a place in a high school in Jamaica. Don’t take it simple.

“Last year I went to China, that great country of 1.3 billion people and with an economy now the size of the United States and they do not guarantee their children education up to grade 11. You get up to grade nine and if you are rich, or live in the city, you are likely to get more. We in Jamaica offer our children a place in school from early childhood right up to the end of secondary school. Last year when president Obama made his State of the Union address he was begging the Congress to give him money so that early childhood education can find a place for every child in America, so that no child could be left behind. We in Jamaica have a place for every child, but very often we don’t pay close attention to the value of education,” Thwaites said.

The education minister, who is also Member of Parliament for Kingston Central, insisted that the most important aspect of a child’s education is the linkage between home and school, adding that the most important thing that any adult can be in Jamaica is a good parent.

He underlined the importance of English and mathematics, urging students not to take their eyes off them, as they represented the gateway to greater things in life.

“Plenty people are going into high school and they are not ready with English and maths. Any student who took GSAT and did not get at least a 60 in English and maths is going to have to do something to bring up himself, before he can really take the benefit of the high school education.

“I am saying to the primary schools in West Rural St Andrew, I know the difficulties you have, but if your teachers need help to make English and maths better, please check us at the Ministry of Education, because we will send you the coaches to help the teachers, because when all is said and done, the children must learn.

“The English language is non-negotiable for our young people’s future. Plenty of us have a fear of maths, but it is the gateway to science, and science is the prism through which development in the 21st century is taking place. Therefore, it is very important that we do not compromise on the standards of mathematics. We have made a jump in CSEC mathematics this year, never seen before,” Thwaites said.

Giving an example of improvement in mathematics at the East Kingston-based Rockfort High School, Thwaites told the story of fellow Rhodes Scholar Timar Jackson, who went back to his alma mater, which had one of the poorest records in mathematics nationally, and started a programme to improve grades in the subject.

“He worked at Sagicor, but instead of gwaan with pomp and pride and say ‘bway, I am the Rhodes Scholar I am bright, you stay in your place, I gone to Oxford’, what he did was take himself back to Vauxhall school every Saturday and Sunday and he enthused the students, encouraged the teachers to come out to extra classes for the maths… no money involved. Vauxhall High School increased their passes in Mathematics by 41 per cent this year. You can do the same,” Thwaites said to applause.