There is a raft of mass media, new media and social media around, and we need to revisit radio as a tool to develop our people. Formal school is being transformed at a slow pace since 2004, but we can use informal and innovative means to fast-track and aid Vision 2030 goals for human capital.

Our flawed schools mean most people are undeveloped in values, reasoning, English, numeracy. Ignorance is close by. Peeps say men under 40 will not use the many out-of-school education offerings as peers — also semi-literate — ridicule them. In past times the will to achieve was strong, provision scanty. Now provision is replete, but takers are few. While our underperforming system takes second-chance young adults for remediation, many bright, ready new children are short-changed. This is not fair.

Jamaica will not prosper unless or until we change. Education is generational, but linking benefits to self-improvement can get idle illiterates off their butts quickly. When Singapore started out the options were build yourself to add value or you cannot share the success. Can Cabinet issue this challenge? Jamaica is a powerhouse in education with experts and accolades, but it does not translate to good schools.

Eighty-five per cent of kids are literate and numerate or cultivated people — why? Ethiopia needs help; an ancient civilisation, no export slavery, was never a colony, now asks a poor-arse, ex-slave, ex -colony for aid as many of us achieve in education for self. Three centuries of endowed schools, two centuries of Mico teacher training, PhDs like rice grains, but education underperforms. Schools have 70 plus per cent student failure yet our educators are legends. What a paradox! Who does our education system serve? So what may we do?

While we wait for schools to be transformed, let’s harness radio as a cheap, effective helper. Radio has the greatest reach; excellent to use for subliminal agendas to improve broad personal accomplishment. Many students are ignorant of basic syllogisms which traverse to adult life and degrees don’t help. Many are opinionated and loud but cannot reason. Many confuse what they like with what is good and know no principles of order, symmetry or harmony.

Minister Ruel Reid, let’s launch ‘A decade of radio education 2016 to 2026’ to help kids and adults. Radio is cheap, listened to by all ages directly or as background, and delivers value. People who work may listen in factories, farms, hospitals, prisons, taxis, buses, cars going to work, school and back, on building sites. Half the population and the idle may bring this to 2.3-million-plus souls.

We can infuse normal radio content with imperceptible content and catalysts to grow thinking skills. People then learn not even knowing they are learning. Radio is people’s media; 90 plus per cent penetration, no fees; receiver in all sizes, even on your smartphone and the privacy of earphones. Radio is a safe background to most jobs; the scaffolding to erect the subliminal architecture to deliver good, almost invisible messaging in support of behaviour change and more know-how.

The need is great, for though we have replete formal education – early childhood, primary, tertiary, lifelong learning, virtual-Education Broadcasting Network and face-to-face (JFLL) — we have not produced thinking kids or adults in quantity. Radio can fill gaps in life understanding and age-appropriate values by infusing normal local radio content and advertising, and ensure accretion of skills, aptitudes, values, know-how painlessly. This needs private sector and education; linking advertisers, media, media psychologists and ethicists as we will not embed brands, though we piggyback on them for national human resource developmentpurposes. The beauty is, it costs almost nothing and affects no other initiative in education but touches all society.

So if not book learning, what can media and radio teach? One minister has a silly grin when asked questions of gravitas. He may be nervous but appears shifty and inadvertently misrepresents Cabinet. Appropriate facial and body control are learnt and his friends do not prips him. On TV,

CSI is teaching many to sift evidence before making decisions;Dragons Den, how to negotiate coolly;Greys Anatomy, medical and hospital process;Schools’ Challenge, vocabulary and meaning — all are great fun. Infusion in normal radio content can teach appreciation, critical thinking, good conduct, and more. A lady on TV who did something heroic said she learnt CPR from “hospital shows” and so saved a man’s life. Media is powerful, and existing radio programmes, properly enabled, may fill gaps in personal education.

The notion that kids or adults learn in a class or from a pedagogue, saying “today I am going to teach you” is flawed. If we piggyback on advertisers, playwrights, videographers, radio producers; get product placement and change messaging infused in their magic, we all win. The power of talk shows to educate is massive — mentor to emotional, financial, language literacy — but need educated, erudite, flexible hosts as you can only teach what you know. Illiterate opinion holds sway as the host is not competent to expose illogic or extant evidence, and a radio audience gets the impression that the rubbish view is valid and the factual one is not, as “mout mek fe talk!” and an angry, loud voice is truth and fact.

The education system is virtually the private sector’s; it puts in most taxes and is the major employer, so it should go this extra mile and collaborate. As we harness the power of radio in a decade of infused know-how, values, inspiration by embedded subliminal transmission not disruptive to the messages of the advertiser or broadcaster, we will see positive changes. Minister Ruel Reid must begin a cross-party conversation; bring agencies, media experts, advertisers and visionaries of this decadal promise to develop technical specs to facilitate subliminal messages in virtual learning spaces of normal radio productions. The fact is the firm’s targeted consumers are also education’s clients. Education is serious investment; the womb of enterprise and the handmaiden of growth. Yes we can. Stay conscious!

— Franklin Johnston D Phil is a strategist and project manager.

franklinjohnstontoo@gmail.com