Leela Ramdeen
Chair, CCSJ & Director, CREDI
On January 24, the world will observe the first UN International Day of Education. The right to education is enshrined in a number of documents, particularly in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in The Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Sustainable Development Goal 4 aims, by 2030, to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all…about 265 million children and adolescents around the world do not have the opportunity to enter or complete school. More than a fifth of them are of primary school age. They are thwarted by poverty, discrimination, armed conflict, emergencies and the effects of climate change. Migration and forcible displacement also affect the achievement of the education goals” (UN).
Her Excellency President Paula-Mae Weekes is correct when she says: “It is time to do a complete overhaul of the education system if we are to have any chance of producing the individuals that we want and need to lead this country into the future.”
I note that Education Minister Anthony Garcia has welcomed her call and states that the ministry “continues to work to ensure access, quality, and equity in education for all students”. While we will all welcome the Revised Education Policy that is being prepared, as a nation, we desperately need to move from policy to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
No piece of paper will address the lottery that currently exists regarding who receives some form of “quality education” and who does not. Prof John Spence founded the Education Discussion Group (EDG) in 2004. I joined this forum where I could share my views on education, having been a teacher, inspector of schools, and deputy director of Education/Head of Quality Assurance in a London Borough. EDG was formed to foster free discussion on all aspects of our education system with a view to formulating ideas that might assist in the reform of this system—recognising that "the major problems in our society are interrelated, eg, crime, poverty, social exclusion, the widening gap between rich and poor; potential for ethnic division; lack of insight into measures needed for sustainable economic growth; poor leadership and management in the public and private sectors”. Some of our ideas were embraced, but many were not.
Efforts to promote integral human development in T&T, that is, the development of each person and of every dimension of the person, continue to fail many. Can we truly say that our system is geared to promote the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students of all ages need to prepare them for life, work, and citizenship? Are we setting students up to fail? Who cares about those who drop out ? Is there efficiency and effectiveness of education financing in T&T? If we fail to invest in education in a meaningful way, we will all suffer the consequences.
The education writer, Valerie Strauss says: “Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work and citizenship.” She shares some of the policies and classrooms features that support education for life, work and citizenship. Take heed of her words: “… real sustainable improvement depends on addressing inequity in areas such as well-paid employment, health care, food, and housing security. You can’t have one without the others” (Washington Post, 2015). And let’s consider the effectiveness of “plant”, resources, curriculum—including the hidden curriculum, home/school/community links etc.
The World Bank’s “A Caribbean Education Strategy” is worth reading. Inter alia, it states: “What is not now clear is the extent to which education systems are exacerbating the problem of social inequity. There is evidence to suggest that there is considerable stratification of schools and variability of inputs. In general, poorer students in urban as well as in rural areas attend schools which receive fewer and lesser quality resources. In terms of the curricula and learning materials, teaching staff and their families cannot afford the supplementary resources which the more well-to-do can provide when school resources are limited.
“This, compounded with a home environment, which, in most cases, does not reinforce skills being taught at school, may account for the high level of underachievement and attrition amongst the economically and socially disadvantaged groups…These inequities are not only manifest as under-achievement but also in the rapidly rising juvenile delinquency and crime rates; reduced productivity and lower incomes of the population affected.”
Let’s not exclude white-collar crime from the mix!