If kids come to us [educators/teachers] from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important.
Barbara Colorose
The recent gaffe by Minister of Education Ronald Jones when he publicly chastised the actions of some school principals has rightly attracted the wrath of Barbadians. His public condemnation of one of the key stakeholders in the educational system cannot be excused. Education is one of the issues where a national consensus is mandatory; the desire by some to politicize this matter must stop. The education of our PEOPLE post Independence has been the vehicle that Barbados has used to overcome many of the challenges that confront nations, especially the developing ones. Its importance can be seen annually by the large slice of the budget which is allocated.
We have no doubt that Minister Jones is sincere in his desire to improve his ministry. He was a teacher and we assume must be acquainted with the challenges facing the educational system. However, arising from the current impasse it is difficult to fathom how Minister Ronald Jones can now commander the support and engender the confidence required from all the stakeholders in the education fraternity.
We believe he should do the honourable thing and resign.
Having stated the above we have to remind the BU family that the challenges facing our educational system did not begin on January 16, 2008. The hunger by other key players in the system to use the public forum to ventilate on sensitive issues is equally wrong and does nothing to build a team approach to problem solving.
What is so difficult for our educators to understand that we are at a critical juncture in the country’s socio-economic development, and education will have to play a key role to support the model society we want to continue building?
What is so difficult for our educators to understand that this is an issue that requires a consensus approach by the Ministry of Education, principals, teachers, parents and others to agree to a roll-out strategy to make our education system relevant?
If all the players were singing from the same hymn sheet then Minister Jones would have appreciated that saying what he did in the forum that he did was inappropriate. His gaffe followed that of the Chief Education Officer Dr. Wendy Griffith-Watson a few months ago when she slighted two of our schools on national radio, it generated a similar furore.
Our children who our educators are committed to serve are being sorely letdown. As long as the public bickering between the Ministry of Education and the other stakeholders continue; the impact on our educational system will be negative at a time when leadership is required in all areas of society. The children represent the future of a country; many have started to question the relevance of the current education system. Our children who have to suffer heavy criticism from society deserve better from our leaders in education.
The subject of education is dear to the hearts of Barbadians, we often boast of our 98+ literacy rate. Instead of the bickering we are hearing from the players in the education sector, we would prefer to hear of the solutions to address the lack of infrastructure to teach reading in many of our schools, how about the inefficiency of the criterion test which is given to Infants B pupils and the results are often not known until they reach Class 2, bear in mind that the criterion test is used to stream students. What about the large number of students who don’t PASS ONE CXC?
Barbadians seem fixated on the success of the block of students located at the pinnacle of the pyramid. A major disappointment has been the unwillingness of our educational system to prepare students for the changing world. The comfort level we still have to produce lawyers, accountants, sociologists and not enough engineers (scientists) and individuals who are prepared to be entrepreneurs. The vision and strategy for education must change to target the thousands of children who are being deposited annually by the current system with no skills.
Minister Jones if he is able to survive the current shouts for his head or his successor, the task to build a consensus approach in the important sector of education must become a priority. A nation of ignorant and illiterate people cannot be a good thing.
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