Last Wednesday I was in a public place and overheard two ladies talking about the increase in murders in our country. “The murders cannot be stopped,” one submitted. “These are end times and the Bible must fulfil,” she continued.

Said the other, “So, wait, God partial then, because some countries don’t have our murder problem.” I found their exchange profound.

Commissioner of Police Major General Antony Anderson reported a 4 per cent increase in major crimes and an 8 per cent increase in murders, last Tuesday. The commissioner says 15 per cent of murders committed in Jamaica stem from interpersonal conflict.

I have discussed our long-standing murder rate in previous columns, so there is no need for a repeat. Imagine, though, if 10 per cent of the interpersonal conflict-related murders had not happened. Imagine the huge financial benefits to the national purse, and the tremendous boost to our national mental health quotient.

Many years ago, while on my way to Kingston, I stopped at a sidewalk shop in St Mary to buy jack fruit. There was a heated discussion among the patrons regarding a then recent murder in the particular community:

“What kind ah man chop up him ownna faddah fi ah likkle piece ah land,” one man inquired.

“Dem full up ah Cain,” (reference to the biblical Cain who killed his bother Abel) one lady opined. Is this part or the whole explanation for the high murder rate in Jamaica?

Consider this: Friends are playing a game of dominoes, a local staple, there is a dispute, this deteriorates, and invectives are used, then physical blows, and ‘before yuh quint’, as we say in local parlance, one person is dead.

I am alluding to an actual incident that was reported in The Star, some years ago.

Check this: Two ladies are at a community pipe, an argument starts as to whose turn it is at the tap. One shoves the other.

She leaves and returns with knife and stabs her neighbour, who succumbs at hospital.

This is not fairy tale it happened right here in Jamaica.

‘Style yuh style mi’

Violence is ubiquitous in our land. It has been so for donkey’s years. Recently I was at a primary school for a function. I sat in my car. Parking was tight. A motorist accidentally — I saw it happen — scratched another vehicle with his car. The occupant was also sitting in his car. Right quick he alighted from his vehicle and reeled off a ‘trailer load’ of ‘badwud’. Gladly, the offending party did not respond in kind, as frequently happens. Thankfully, the matter was eventually settled amicably.

Years ago, ‘dissing’ (disrespecting) was one of our biggest triggers for physical violence. The new term for ‘dissing’ is ‘styling’.

Last Sunday I drove into a gas station in the Corporate Area. A taxi man with his music blaring sped onto the premises. If his objective was to capture the attention of the waiting customers, he succeeded. Customers could not help but notice his attempts to circumvent two of the queues. This led to a predictable confrontation.

“A style, yuh ah style mi, Boss man,” said another taxi driver, who the miscreant tried to cheat out of his turn at the pump.

“Yow, yuh know mi, yuh kno weh mi come from,” bellowed the wrongdoer.

The squabble descended into threats and abuses which cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

The combustible situation was quelled when a ‘jeep’ with members of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) raced onto the promises. The men were cautioned.

Our country needs therapy, concentrated and long-term therapy.

Except for periods when I have visited other countries, I have lived here all my life. The severe anger that I am seeing today is not by any means a new phenomenon. We have an endemic anger management problem in our country. We can philosophise all we want. We can sanitise and deodorise the murder figures ’til the cows come home. We can politicise our crime rate ’til we are blue in the face, that will not alter the fact that we have a severe violence problem.

Transformation

Jamaica is not afflicted with an Abrahamic curse. Rural folks, in their philosophical brilliance, say: “What man has done, other men can do.” I agree!

Countries with similar levels of violence have kicked the habit. We can. And we do not need to look to Europe for the solutions.

Paul Kagame, nicknamed the “Lee Kuan Yew of Africa” has transformed his country from the ashes of a genocide that ended with the slaughter of one in every 10 Rwandan.

Hold your horses, I am not advocating that we ape Rwanda’s transformation. I believe, however, that we can learn many lessons from them and tailor to our needs.

Facts matter!

On the matter of aping, recent comments by Dr Garth Anderson, dean of the Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica (TCJ), which were published in this newspaper unfortunately conflated the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) with a reassigning of its core functions. Such conflations are not helpful.

Unhelpful too are suggestions that there are attempts at aping the British Education System in general or, more specifically, the now defunct GTCE, in the configuration of the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill, which is now being debated by a joint select committee of Parliament.

As we strive to transform our education system to provide quality education for all Jamaicans, we must not lose sight of our individual and collective responsibility to engage and embrace facts. Omissions and obfuscations do not help the cause of the common objective of transformation.

To support the cause of clarity, it is important that stakeholders understand that while the GTCE was indeed abolished in 2010, its substantive functions were not repealed.

The functions were simply reassigned during a recalibration of specific areas of the Education apparatus in England. Periodic restructuring of a country’s education system is quite normal in the 21st century.

On April 1, 2012, the Teaching Agency (TA), then a new executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE) in England, was entrusted with many of the core functions which were formerly assigned to the (GTCE).

These functions included the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS); induction certificates; hearing induction appeals; and regulation of the teaching profession.

It is important that stakeholders understand that, with the exception of reprimands, the Education Act [England] 2011 confirms that all General Teaching Council for England sanctions remained in force.

Regarding the regulation of teacher misconduct, it is important that stakeholders understand also that the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), another executive agency of the DfE is responsible for investigating cases of serious teacher misconduct.

On April 1, 2012 responsibility to regulate the teaching profession in England and to hold a list of teachers who were prohibited from teaching in that jurisdiction was assigned to the secretary of state for education consistent with the Education Act [England], 2011.

It bears repeating that while the General Teaching Council for England was abolished in 2010, its substantive functions were not annulled, they were simply reallocated to enhance output and promote greater operational efficiencies in the education system in England.

I do not believe that any reasonable stakeholder in our education system can fairly say that the Government has failed to put a premium on wide-ranging participation. Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams has twice agree to extend the date for submissions on the Jamaica Teaching Council Bill. Indeed, great effort and resources have been invested and expended to ensure the widest involvement of stakeholders in the deliberations.

To date, submissions from the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), the National Parent Teachers’ Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC), the Ecumenical Education Committee (EEC), Jamaica Association of Homeschoolers, The University of the West Indies School of Education, the University of Technology Jamaica (UTech), Teachers’ Colleges of Jamaica (TCJ), and others have been received. I believe the diverse perspectives can only enhance the strength of our legislative processes and democracy.

On the point of democracy, it is widely accepted that a citizenry who can think critically is an important benchmark of a functional democracy. I believe this is one of the main reasons that successive governments have appointed several committees and commissions to delve into our education system in order to identify, among other things, the reasons for its obvious and long-standing underachievement. The shortcomings of our education system do not need to be repeated here. They are well known.

It is also well known and accepted that one of the glaring weaknesses of our education system is a legislative framework which has simply outlived its usefulness. It is a settled matter that Jamaica’s education system needs a legislative transformation. We have been attempting to achieve this necessary revamping for the last 13 years. The process has been thwarted by stops and starts.

I think it is imperative that we escape this non-progressive mode. The fact is, Jamaica will not realise her full social and economic potential if the transformation of education is continually detained by distractions and narrowing preoccupations.

The JTC Bill is not a “clandestine plot to criminalise teachers”, as some have mistakenly said. It seeks to provide for the establishment of a governing body for the teaching profession and institute a regime for the registration and licensing of all government paid teachers.

In a democracy crafting legislation is a hugely collaborative exercise. It has to be. Fayval Williams, the Education Minister has said repeatedly that the JTC Bill is not a “done deal”.

When the JTC Bill transitions into legislation it will be advantageous to all stakeholders. Our teachers will, therefore, become much more marketable.

The truth is, not everyone is suited for teaching. Teaching is more than a calling; it is also a science which has to be carefully developed through the diligent upgrading, application and replication of fit-for-purpose skills and standards.

This means that new standards, tailored to our unique circumstances, and simultaneously parallel to international benchmarks will have to be adopted, and quickly. This is not aping, it is common sense. Jamaica is part of a global community. We are signatories to several international declarations and agreements on child rights, education, and related areas. This is a reality that cannot be exorcised from our minds.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist, and a senior advisor to the minister of education & youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.