Dear Editor,

As I watched a recent newscast, I heard that 56 high schools and 189 primary schools were classified as failing. In a quick response, the Minister of Education (MOE) Dr Dana Morris Dixon told the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament that part of the intervention to uplift these schools would include serving breakfast and building the “best labs”.

While these two efforts are commendable, they miss the mark by a mile. MOE officials need to recognise and accept that the fundamental problem with the Jamaican education system is that for decades it has tried to build a structure on a shaky and inadequate foundation. It has been tinkering with our education sector for decades and not getting the desired results because the foundation is not solid. The pockets of excellence (pretty buildings) belies the foundation built on sand.

The foundation of our country’s education sector is early childhood/basic/infant schools. Most of the schools in this segment are privately owned and rife with problems, from untrained teaching staff to lack of adequate resources, cramped and under-resourced classrooms, lack of proper governance, etc. Truth be told, they are operated for profit by the owners.

The Early Childhood Commission, which was set up to regulate the sector, has not succeeded in bringing about the requisite improvement. The bottom line is that most students leave these intuitions not being able to master the basics — reading, writing, and arithmetic.

These same students then go on to government-owned/operated primary schools where they are pushed through the mill, still not able to master the basics. At grade six they are made to sit the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exam and are placed in high schools. Over the past four decades this country has sent 45,000 to 50,000 such students to high schools each year, expecting them to be able to do well at Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). The result is that Jamaica continues to underperform at the CSEC level, and we wonder why. Let me explain: Students who cannot read are not able to pass exams, as they are unable to understand the questions being asked. Yet we waste billions of dollars each year expecting a miracle. It will not happen! Which other nation on planet Earth has engaged in such a waste of human and financial capital?

Come on Jamaica, we are a smart people, let us fix the problem where it lies, at the foundation, the early childhood/basic/infant schools. The Government, via the MOE, needs to take over this segment of the system and ensure that, at a minimum, properly trained teachers are in place at these institutions. It will take a few years, but we can do it. This way we will ensure that the students will leave these institutions being able to read. Let us switch up the education budget and spend some of the billions of dollars on early childhood education. How many more reports are we going to commission to tell us the same solution? Let us just do it.

Recently, I read about the programme implemented at Holy Trinity High School teaching grade seven students to read. Commendable, but this is downstream intervention and after we have spent millions of dollars on them at primary schools without success.

We need to equip the mass of our students at the head of the stream (foundation). If we don’t change our strategy, we will forever be talking about failing schools, breakfast, and “best labs”.

Carlton C Francis

carltoncon@gmail.com