Given the inequity embedded in our education system, transformation has to be deliberate and intentional about its purpose. Education, in the interest of the greater good, moves beyond a narrow utilitarian role in economic development to the deeper questions of the kind of society that we are trying to build.

The State education system that is our post-colonial legacy was not envisioned to educate the working class and poor; it is well documented that the schooling process was an industrial model intended to deliver a compliant workforce accepting of inequity as the norm; supported by the sifting and sorting mechanisms (assessments) at critical junctures in the process to deliver a basically schooled workforce and an educated elite. This system has outlived its usefulness in a transforming landscape heading towards Vision 2030.My proposition is that through the education transformation agenda that our school system is already halfway through, we can bring even greater coherence to a range of government policies, provided that there is consensus among educators and policymakers about educational purpose and what we are trying to transform, from early years through to tertiary. The transformation of our education system is dependent on the transformation of our thinking at all levels of the system and that this is followed through in our implementation from initial teacher training through to policy conceptualisation.The National Standards Curriculum (NSC) provides an opportunity for a more inclusive educational offer than we currently have. NSC’s potential will only be realised by creative and innovative training of teachers and ongoing professional development of those who lead them, to build truly learner-centred places of learning.Teaching that focuses on educating students on how to learn, rather than dispensing narrow bandwidths of ‘knowledge’ soon becomes redundant in an ever-changing world — such is the order of the 21st century school. Assessments that tell us what students know, can do, and indicate potential are critical to transforming our education system: no student should leave years of statutory education without some kind of certification, validating and documenting their learning journey.A progressive and flexible staffing structure is needed for transforming schools that responds to the school’s context, functions, needs, and priorities. A reclassification of schools that allows for different arrangements and types of schools in different localities will accelerate transformation. The transformation agenda in its second stage is exploring all of these.The golden thread linking these initiatives is the genius of Jamaican students and educators who see the educational process as a human right to which all human beings are entitled. Key among the deliverables that we should seek from the significant investment in a national education system is its social and civic function of exposure to and reinforcement of an unambivalent sense of who we are and a rebuilding of our identity and culture as a nation through a humanising educational experience.In societies where education has become a commodity and competition rules, narrow curricular determined by equally narrow modalities of assessment reduce education only to that which can be measured. We have a much greater vision for our transforming education system.Yes, as a post-colonial State we have inherited a classist education system, but we are deconstructing it — see all of the above. Some of our best schools and educators are already leading the way; disrupting regressive narratives en route, allow them. 

Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, MBE, is director/principal of the National College for Educational Leadership. Send comments to the Observer or

rosemary.campbell-stephens@ncel.gov.jm.