Ronald Thwaites | Flipping the script

Let’s turn some things upside down to achieve better results. Two topics spring forth from last week’s events: squatting and education reform.

What sense are we to make of Andrew Holness’ ‘bruk up then hug up’ strategy at Bernard Lodge? Instead of heavy-handed demolition of their houses and claiming that they are “criminals”, why not offer people like those who captured a piece of Bernard Lodge, a reasonable alternative for their settlement? Is this what he has ended up proposing? Is he believable? And Fitz, please distinguish yourself from appearing to be his acolyte in this cruel and tawdry drama!

Because no prime ministerial bromides, no front-end loaders, nor platoons of soldiers can stop squatting in Jamaica. When humans have no alternatives to attain essential things, like food and housing, considerations of order and private property become irrelevant.

Nothing said here must be taken as support for land capture, but I understand that people have to live somewhere. They see land being ‘tek’ by party hacks (please, could we have a list of all land divestment by this Government and those before, if you like); many contribute to the NHT but are unable to qualify for a benefit. Frustration, need and bad example overtake blunted consciences. There are simply insufficient opportunities for ownership. So people fend for themselves.

How do we feel as a nation that 50 years after the founding of the National Housing Trust and a century and more since the building societies were formed, easily more than a million of our citizens live on land over which they have no tenure?

Then there are the robbers and grabbers posing as needy. They are the ones who should be isolated and be made to pay or be evicted. Just check the ‘criss’ cars parked in some squatter settlements.

WON’T SOLVE THE PROBLEM

Demolition won’t solve the problem. Many squatters can claim possessory titles by now, if only existing law and procedure worked efficiently. They do not. The well-intentioned land adjudication and titling system cannot cope with the demand. Oh yes, impressive numbers of titles will soon be announced in one or two parishes. Good, but grossly insufficient. The energy that Daryl Vaz put into law reform to accelerate titling a few years ago is being culpably wasted, while MPs squabble about increasing informality of tenure, for which all are responsible.

The well-connected big guy who wants to turn a thousand acres of our best irrigated agricultural land into other use will find it much easier to get a title than Miss Mattie, whose two-square house spot is the only place she has to go.

Let’s turn the injustice and inequity into an opportunity, nuh. Instead of repression and destruction, propose affordable (not free!) solutions. There is Crown land (yes, King Charles III is still King of Jamaica) and other available properties near to every population centre where people will want to live, so as to access jobs and social amenities.

Ask our King and his local representatives (who, in the warp of history, are the biggest capturers of Jamaican land!) to donate the land to benefit the descendants of those who made the same plea to his predecessor, Queen Victoria, in 1865.

Forgive her feisty reply telling black people to work harder – without land and home (same thing we are doing now.) Use recoverable NHT money to scribe out roads, peg lots, establish basic infrastructure and SELL or give leases for life to homeseekers.

No double-buying, no speculators allowed. Enable the half of NHT contributors who can’t qualify for a loan but need a home, to purchase. Give inter-generational mortgages and, crucially, enforce the terms of repayment. No moral hazard tolerated.

Prescribe and insist on house designs appropriate to the size of the lots. Then watch Jamaicans improve their homesteads, as they have always done (check Nannyville and De La Vega sites and services); consolidate families and build social peace.

When such opportunity is available, then you have a moral basis to clamp down on squatting; and where there is rank disregard for order, removal is justified.

Go even further and blend private-sector mortgage money ( if there is any left over after the ongoing $50 million a piece high-rise bubble) into the completion and titling of existing informal settlements. Residents must pay reasonable sums for real improvements. Nothing ‘stush’: just improved basic infrastructure.

Set a 10-year target and then we can credibly talk about an ownership society, and feel proud that something tangible and sustainable has been achieved near to 2030.

The religious denomination to which I am affiliated operates several high schools of distinction, and others which are striving for excellence against heavy odds, the chief of which is the illiteracy of students entering grade seven. Such students need two years to catch up before they are ready for secondary courses. So let’s turn the Sixth Form Pathway Programme upside down.

Until we fix the early-childhood and primary sectors, the best use of two additional years of high school is to make the time and resources available at the beginning, so that after the remediation of literacy, numeracy and sociability have taken place, a real prospect of high-school success can be reasonably assured. Otherwise, the Sixth Form Pathway becomes a late-stage JAMAL with little chance of success, following on from the conveyor-belt promotion routine between grades seven to 11.

Any analysis of the most recent CXC results proves the point. For the cross-section of schools, both rural and urban, which I have studied, the majority of passes in English and mathematics are at the grade-three level, which is barely a scrape through. The bulk of those sitting came out in the failing categories.

Additionally, the capacity to express in English and grasp and apply basic mathematical concepts is both frighteningly low. Several recent interactions with primary-school and just entering high-school students indicate severe social maladjustment. The children are have difficulty settling down to learn, and most are experiencing ‘bad, bad’ learning regression as a result of COVID time loss.

This is a respectful appeal for government to rethink state policies in these two crucial areas of national life. And for the Opposition to take a stand!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.