Orville Taylor | Let’s begin with early childhood education

Silver and gold will vanish away but … actually, the unfinished last part is not true, because unfortunately, many of us experience some degree of dementia later in life. However, during our active lives, a solid education in our fields is indispensable. Doubtless, some of our best professionals have never received the occupational certification for whatever they do. Yet they make many of those with ‘papers’ look like fools. Be not mistaken. My views that certain careers, especially those that are in direct client intervention relationships with the public need to have government put in place hurdles for them to cross in order to protect the vulnerable.

Last week, I listen with great pride as my colleague, Dr Marcia Rainford, director of the School of Education at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, presented like the expert she is before the Joint Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament. Unlike a few nice-talking PhDs who make the public wonder if their tuition should have been refunded or put on a lotto ticket, she hit several nails so hard that they countersank. Of course, being a labour specialist, my first round of applause must be her call for exonerated teachers to be reimbursed all lost remuneration.

Indeed, a former minister of education, a few years ago, had to wipe an entire tray of eggs from his face because around 80 per cent of disciplinary cases were overturned on appeal. This personally irked me deeply because in the early 1990s at the behest of Dorothy Raymond and Wilfred Titus, of blessed memories I designed a dispute resolution and disciplinary procedure for the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and conducted seminars across the country to precisely avoid such occurrences. Therefore, when members of the sector are treated unfairly, it brings up cerassee with the bile.

Outside of courts proceedings, educators who have been wronged by internal actions of the ministry must be given some sort of pecuniary damages. Just imagine, in the context of a research institution , for example, how much time and energy an innocent person would have lost. All legal fees must be returned to her.

UNCERTAIN STATUS

Another spot-on point is the uncertain status of teachers in early childhood institutions. A country that has an oversupply of doctors and lawyers, but what looks like a shortage of qualified construction personnel accompanied by a dearth of qualified individuals in early childhood entities, is such a contortionist that it is staring itself squarely into the darkest part of its own anatomy.

For all of the social science research and practice, we have failed miserably in this most basic of tasks. In fact, it might be precisely because of the lack of proper attention to early childhood development why we have these men and women making policies that have been as bankrupt as a fake millionaire in the mid-1990s. No disrespect to the Early Childhood Commission, whose officers have worked assiduously over the years. The major problem is that we have failed to treat the socio-psychological development of children with the same priority as we have their physical development.

No one would dare employ a nurse practitioner or general physician as a paediatrician. Even among this qualified group of professionals, it is a ‘no brainer’ that specialised training among them is indispensable for the magnitude of the task of caring for our most tender and precious resources. Teachers, unlike doctors, do not simply give the kid a look-over, a shot,, or some meds and send them to their parents. Early childhood teachers are surrogates and if they get it wrong or right, they ultimately create either Einstein, Frankenstein, or someone who keeps refilling his stein. Ask my colleagues – social worker Claudette Crawford Brown, Carlene Boyce Reid, Aldene Shillingford, Herbert Gayle, Georgia Rose, and Tracy McFarlane, to name a few – about the importance of getting it absolutely right early in the lives of our children. In fact, Maureen Samms Vaughn, a medical doctor, and leading expert in these matters, has her eyes fixed on social antecedents of behavioural outcomes later.

DILEMMA

Yet, we have a dilemma. My erstwhile mentor at the Ministry of Labour, Anthony Irons, a man with only the degrees on his thermometer, taught me a lot. But one expression has stayed with me for years when people are recruited in the labour market. “You get what you pay for!” No disrespect to the current hard-working crop of early childhood facilitators, many of whom do not have the qualification but have the best of heart and are very skilled ‘amateurs’.

If we do not pay the salaries that match the importance of the job not simply the qualification of the worker, then we will get the least qualified people occupying the positions. Still, as we do the necessary in improving the capacity of the early childhood professionals, only an idiot would attempt a ‘purge’. We must, however, put our money and our mouth in showing that children matter.

Do the math. Government must take on the task of upgrading every single teacher in the sector who is unqualified. It must also pay them what the job is worth.

Trust me, the overall value to the society that a good basic school teacher brings is at least twice that of an engineer, junior prosecutor, or junior doctor.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.