LA Sonja Harrison knows that a year is really a short time for her to tick all the boxes on the raft of issues facing the teachers’ union.

But Harrison, the new Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) president since last month, has one burning concern that she wants addressed during her tenure — a serious debate on the philosophy that guides Jamaica’s approach to education and how the country goes about financing the sector.

“If I can spark a national debate, and it transcends to more than just a spark,” that would be a major achievement, Harrison told journalists at the Jamaica Observer Press Club last Thursday.

“We need to determine if, as a nation, what we currently expend is really adequate, as is reported through the Patterson report and the expenditure review on education funded by the World Bank and UNICEF,” Harrison said.

“We need, as a nation, to say, ‘This is the citizen we want to produce — a Jamaican citizen who is authentically Jamaican but is globally relevant and will help to churn the economic wheels of this nation through our innovations and talents while we seek to continue to improve Brand Jamaica,” she said.

In March last year the Government announced that it would invest $114 billion, or approximately six per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), in education.

In opening the budget debate at the time, Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke had said the Administration was continuing to allocate the largest share of its budget, outside of debt repayment, to education.

On Thursday, Harrison said what was needed was a detailed examination of what is currently expended on education in order to see and whether it is enough to contribute to the country’s development.

The JTA president also argued that there is a need to look at the factors “influencing how we drive education in this nation” because what is being put forward as a philosophy at this time is questionable.

“It doesn’t speak to the kind of citizen we want to produce, it doesn’t speak to how we are going to fund the producing of that citizen to take this nation in the direction we want it to go,” Harrison emphasised.

She also argued that the legacies and tentacles of colonialism still plague Jamaica’s education system, as it is not crafted to provide “equitable access” to all Jamaican children.

“We continue to articulate and to go around, and we have all these conversations and we have report after report, and the reports highlight similar recommendations and identify the same challenges yet we have not held our leaders — regardless of which colour is in Government — [to account to determine] that this is the path we are charting for education; we will turn neither to the left nor to right; we’re expending x amount of funds, based on what we have, and incrementally we say each year we’re going to add one per cent, two per cent, but we keep working at it, based on our context,” Harrison said.

“We need to stop comparing ourselves to Singapore, Finland and all of those countries. What they spend on education we don’t even spend in a year so we cannot be comparing apples and oranges and then we want to attain a first class education system on what it is that we currently input,” she argued.

“So, I think a real conversation needs to be had around that, and that will help us to better resource our schools and, hopefully, persuade more of our better teachers to remain in Jamaica,” Harrison added.