Dear Editor,

Minister of Education Senator Ruel Reid can save himself further public relations meltdowns about his non-mandatory contribution policy by getting rid of contributions altogether and going the full nine yards in having the Ministry of Education fully fund schools.

If in principle the Government is asserting that parents should not have to pay for their children’s education, then it must stand ready to foot this bill.

If it also sees education as a public good and does not want to burden poor parents with even making a small contribution, then why does it not marshal the resources of the State to cover the full cost of education across the entire system? If not having parents contribute to their child’s education is such an important part of moving Jamaica forward and achieving the prosperity we seek, then why burden schools with inadequate funding?

As the self-styled great implementer, it should not be a problem for Reid to convince the Ministry of Finance and the International Monetary Fund to free up the funds needed to fill the gap being experienced by schools since the introduction of the non-mandatory contribution policy.

Instead of berating schools and labelling them as corrupt and extortionist, Reid should focus his energies on bringing the full force of his office into getting the Government to give education the funding it actually needs. Yes, funding to schools has been increased, but anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the education systems knows that this increase is nearly not enough to cover the expenses of running a school.

In a situation where the Government has declined to fully cover the operational expenses of school and has prevented them from maximising the contributions they can collect from parents, schools are really between a rock and a hard place.

If it can be proven to be so, it is indeed egregious for schools to be subverting a stated policy of the Government in respect of not denying services to students who cannot pay the contribution fee. But what are schools to do when they have a genuine deficit in their funding obligations?

With the intimate knowledge he has of the funding woes of schools, the strategy Reid has employed in naming and shaming school is unnecessarily antagonistic. Dangling the chairmanship of school boards as a reward for following his policy can also be viewed as corrupt and extortionist.

Given the real financial crunch that schools are facing under the non-voluntary contribution regime, it can be expected that Reid will continually have to engage in the kind of bluster that he has since the introduction of the policy. All of this can be avoided by giving schools the full funding that they need. If he goes to the Ministry of Finance with this proposal and is turned down because of the fragile financial state in which the country finds itself, then Reid should be honest about this fact and begin to rethink his approach to the funding mechanism he has devised for the education sector.

Christopher Grant

chrisdgrant46@gmail.com