Ronald Thwaites | Doing bad things to ourselves

With so many vehicles on roads which were never constructed for such capacity, we have again used scarce resources to back ourselves into a corner from which it will be difficult to escape. The albatross of the oil bill will get worse for everyone except the tax collectors and the marketing companies. The drain on the foreign exchange supply for vehicle spares and replacements will curtail other more productive imports; the JUTC will continue to run below capacity and the congestion and carnage will get worse.

The government has a complete transportation policy. It is complete in its incoherence. Effective ticketing will help little when easily a third of drivers have never been trained or have pathologies and habits which render them unfit for safe operation.

I appeal to the Road Safety Council and the motor vehicle insurance companies to come up with a plan for the training and re-certification of all drivers, at the drivers’ expense and as a penalty for common traffic offences. Education and training, not principally after the event repression and sanctions, are the best ways to modify human behaviour.

Corruption breeds free-for-all as much on the road as in the approvals for the high-rise structures which Gavin Goffe wrote about so presciently last week. There is a compelling reason why there is insufficient inspection of the plans and projects, Gavin. Just like the certificates of fitness for vehicles and driver certification. Under the table considerations dictate much of what goes on. The result is inevitable. How many Jamaican wage-earners can afford $150,000 a month for mortgage or rent? What will happen when they default? And in the meanwhile, the poor will continue to squat until they locate a scam or migrate.

We keep doing bad things to ourselves.

Here’s another case. My school girl Rihanna has just paid her fees to take external exams – some CXC, some City & Guilds. Trouble is she can’t read. This girl, like the millions now at last being acknowledged among the silent left-behind in the United States, have regressed seriously during the COVID-19 years. A meagre 26 per cent of eighth-graders in the US were assessed proficient in mathematics last year. And only one in three students met reading proficiency standards, a designation that means candidates have demonstrated competency and are on track for future success.

Listen to Miguel Cardona, the USA’s equivalent to our minister of education, as quoted recently in the New York Times: “I want to be very clear. The results in the nation’s score card are appalling and unacceptable. This is a moment of truth for education.”

Compare that with our efforts to paper-over the chronic and worsening state of school illiteracy in Jamaica. Our leaders continue to project the delusion that online teaching and learning were not disastrous for the majority of schoolers.

Fearful of the political consequences of our deepening and largely self-made problem of school-based illiteracy, we go on like it doesn’t exist while the conditions in our classrooms are getting more and more dire. A lot of violence at school has its origin in illiteracy.

I’m on my knees now, begging the ministry, the teachers and the school boards to pause everything else and concentrate on 1reading levels in the classroom. This would be a major antidote to crime, violence and the low-wage economy. Postpone CXC next year until every entrant can read at Grade-11 standard. Stop the deceit that the alternative level of City & Guilds is an acceptable substitute. Students who do not read well in primary school are most likely to underperform in or drop out of high school and so be unable to contribute sufficiently or at all to a productive citizenry. Don’t we see the evidence right in front of us. Why continue to act as if crime and underdevelopment are original sins?

Stop doing bad things to ourselves.

The prime minister pleads for patience because he said there was not enough money to fix roads and rails about what he calls the culture of poverty. Sir, ignoring the yawning deficit in educational attainment is contributing more to a culture of poverty than the PNP who you and those close to you, seem to love to blame for everything. Why not let us try to make common cause and jointly find ways to cure this cancer? This would provide you with a really great legacy. What is certain is that one side can’t manage the necessary therapy on its own.

We keep doing bad things to each other. Why?

The Ministry of the Public Service inches toward a wage settlement with civil servants without one word about productivity increase. There can never be enough money for public services and private satisfaction if we keep spending our billions inefficiently on education and normalising the shame of an MP declaring in desperation that the Chinese contractor can fix road better than the Jamaican counterparts.

VETTING SCHOOL DEVOTIONS?

No, minister, school is not church, but moral education founded on religious principles are the foundation of what is good in Jamaican culture and indeed in much of Western civilization. Present disaster will compound if schools are regulated into barren secular wastelands. Government seems to forget that almost half of all public schools are owned or sponsored by churches. Leasing them or financially supporting them gives government no right to prescribe the form of their devotions which form part of their instruction in values and attitudes.

No school that I know of disrespects the rights of conscience of any student or demands denominational adherence. Something seems to have happened one day recently at Oberlin High, a respected United Church institution. That religious communion is quite able to correct any excess without state intervention.

Mrs. Williams, concentrate on reintroducing civics, ending illiteracy and supporting humane education and leave devotions alone. We need more of the Way, Truth and Light of Jesus in our schools, not less! And church leaders, you ought to be strong partners, not servile, follow-line anachronisms in Jamaica’s education enterprise. Please stand up for Him who you serve.

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