It was around 40 or so years ago the late public intellectual Lloyd Best proposed we put our young people “in boots” as part of a mandatory programme of national service to instil values of service and discipline. I remember being uncomfortable about it because it carried with it a notion of coercion as being useful in shaping delicate minds.
I also thought the idea faced the danger of being somewhat elitist in eventual application. In countries such as ours, “everybody” is not always … everybody. We witnessed this recently upon enforcement of pandemic measures.
Some years following Best’s bold prescription, fellow Tapiaman Lincoln Myers attempted to carry the idea into government, but it was promptly shot down by (among others but principally) late Maha Sabha SG Satnarayan Maharaj.
Years later, my friend and former PoS mayor, Louis Lee Sing, became a leading advocate for national service as a way of rehabilitating people who do not positively contribute to society. Again, the intervention of Maharaj and others made sure the idea reached nowhere, through deployment of a devastating missile bearing a slogan of “forced miscegenation”.
It would thus be interesting to follow closely what the current manifestation of the idea, as promoted by Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, yields by way of public commentary and advocacy.
This time around, what we have is a drastically scaled-down version of the earlier idea of inculcating values surrounding discipline and teamwork as a way of rectifying deviant behaviour. Okay, so that’s an inadequate summary of intended impact, but there is a lot of literature on this that’s accorded much more than newspaper column space. The mandate of the Military-Led Academic Training Programme (MiLAT) is to be expanded now to include children who have been expelled from the school system, after all reasonable measures to bring them to a point of compliance with basic rules have been expended. MiLAT was established exclusively for boys and young men between the ages of 16 and 20. It was set up as a two-year, “full-time residential academic programme designed … to fulfil the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC).”
Over a year ago, Minister of Youth Development and National Service Minister, Foster Cummings, announced he was looking at extending the programme to include girls and young women. I have not heard of any progress on this. So, for the most part, I believe we are looking at boys and young men.
The original, key targets are euphemistically described in the MiLAT prospectus as students who have been “distracted from writing exams”, “no longer see the value in academic pursuit”, are “distracted from academic pursuit” and, have “become distracted by life issues”.
There are inferences from such descriptions that vaguely signal the symbiotic acceptance of young people who now find themselves out of a place in the public school system because of what the minister describes as “behavioural issues”.
I must confess to have not followed the progress of MiLAT since its inception in 2007. What I know is it has spanned several political administrations and a period during which there has been a notable increase in concern that our young people are increasingly both the perpetrators and disproportionate victims of deviant societal behaviour. Such an intervention, however, comes at the end of a process of deterioration. There are actions that need to come both before and after the current response. The circumstances leading to the behaviours being addressed need to be more comprehensively and honestly examined.
There are countries that have tried much harder to get to the bottom of this through research and consultation and informed contemplation. There are numerous studies, programmes and actions to be examined.
But there are also antecedents and nuances frequently missed by those currently pronouncing boldly on the matter here. Some connections between exposures and actions are clearly not inelastic or lacking in nuance. (“They watch too many violent movies and listen to awful music”).
So it is that we need to move beyond educated guesses and to spend far more time in rigorous research and action when it comes to both causes and impacts.
There is also the question of what happens after MiLAT and other mitigative measures. In this specific instance, for example, there are likely to be the challenges of stigmatisation and ensuing discrimination, and other negative fallout from being a part of the programme.
I would like to hear from the minister, when there is time and space for further elaboration, what are the befores, nows, and afters that have determined that this course of action is in order and appropriate.
Putting feet in boots doesn’t mean anything by itself.