It seems everybody is an expert on education in Barbados. All of us have opinions about the best approach to educating our children whether based on the whimsical or research (evidence) based. Shouldn’t local experts be permitted to design an education roadmap anchored to a vision for Barbados which covers the next ten to fifteen years? A relevant vision born from intensive collaboration with actors in civil society?
Instead, we allow incompetent politicians to hijack an important process. What brand of education do we want to deliver to our people with the ultimate objective of equipping Barbadians to be problem solvers, leverage homegrown resources to drive national productivity with the knock-on benefit that results in excess output of goods and services are disposed of in the global market for needed foreign dollars.
It is evident the current education trajectory is going nowhere fast. We continue to bury our heads in the sand by continuing to focus on top performers in the 11+. We churn out annually hundreds of paper trophies at UWI. However when we do a pulse check of the state of Caribbean societies, an alarming level of mendicancy and decadence exist that is frightening for what it portends.
Escalating crime has transformed once tranquil small societies. There is rapidly increasing national debt that leaves little room for focus on development. If current trends are not arrested, there is the foreboding thought Barbados and other regional countries maybe in the same boat as Haiti in the not too distant future.
An education policy if designed and implemented with perfection is the tool to advance the cause. However, we have reached a state in Barbados where there is too little focus on what we need to do to survive and compete in a competitive world. A scan of the media space, a listen to the mouthings of talking heads, NGOs, citizens et al – there is a resignation about the next steps to be taken. The exodus of some of our best teachers – who decided to flee a teaching service that has become chaotic and ungovernable will not help matters.
The question from a lowly blogmaster ignorant about this lofty subject – how do we develop, implement and sustain a relevant education system, AND, at the same time develop, implement and sustain a relevant remedial system to capture thousands that have fallen through large cracks. Is it true what clinical social worker Erica Komisar is opining in the video posted that our school system is feminizing boys and traumatizing girls?
We should be able to agree a revamp of the delivery of education in a modern world is an urgent requirement. The pandemic did Barbados and resource poor countries no favours. Where is the urgency to play catch up? Rather than aggressively roll out ‘fit for purpose’ education policies and strategies, we have to be fumigating schools because of sick building syndrome or poor cleaning practices.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.