Ronald Thwaites | Avoiding issues

Both Pearnel and I have been married to our respective wives for more than half a century. So on Wednesday last, in the wake of Nigel’s verbal gymnastics the day before, I asked him if ever we said or did something which our wife thought hurtful, even if we never intended it to be so, what would we do? Refuse to apologise because by so doing it would “legitimise that which was not meant”?

We agreed in a flash. Do that and one wouldn’t stay married very long. It is the same for any other relationship. Like the one we “dam fools” refuse to realise had better exist between Nigel and Mark if we ever hope to transform this country for the better. or even have a purposeful referendum.

So the minister of finance needs a speech writer with more emotional intelligence and less casuistry. An apology concedes hurt which decency demands that you correct. Mark did it. Angela did it. Nigel did not. He, and we, are the poorer for that. And it’s going to stick in our craw.

UNNECESSARY CONTENTION

The Supreme Court has reinstated a former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education who had been ejected from post just before the autoclaps in that ministry of March 2019. The move was so clumsy as to be pathetic. A non-existent post was conjured up to get the “appointed officer” out of the way. Why? Since then he has been handsomely paid by us for years to do nothing. Where is the justice in that? Where is the verve to reform the archaic staff orders of the public service?

A minister can be dismissed at a prime minister’s wink, but apparently, to discharge a permanent secretary you would have to prove gross turpitude. Who does a permanent secretary report to anyway? Surely it can’t be to the minister who, unlike him/her, has no permanence and is paid a much lower salary. All because of the threat of political interference. What a shameful pox we have infected ourselves with.

Read the judgments in the Bernard case and you will wonder with me why this case ever reached court and cringe at the weakness of the defence put up, supposedly on our behalf. Once again, this government has shown itself to be very weak in legal talent. The taxpayer is left to stand big losses. Meanwhile the batter-bruises inflicted to education continue to fester, unhealed. The Patterson Report has obviously been sidelined and the illiterates continue to be spawned.

SCREW THE ENVIRONMENT

Last week too, government, which is supposed to protect the weakest, went to court seeking to overturn the injunction preventing strip mining in the Cockpit Country. They argue that if the bauxite money does not come in, either taxes must raise or poor people’s survival money would cut.

What brutal clarity! Let us rape the countryside or we will forfeit your food money is the stark message . Memories of 1833: slaveman, sign on to the semi-slavery of Apprenticeship or Massa will push you off your cultivation ground on the estate. Daryl, is that you? Heads you win, tails I lose. No undertaking to restore even an acre to productive use. Screw the environment. A money time now!

CHAOS AT JUTC…

Same time, bus drivers strike and taximan score. To hell with the traffic law. Money fi mek! John public must pay exorbitant fares and subsidise a ‘jus fi ded’ JUTC from the same pocket. We want justice! What is the point of striking against a bankrupt public company unless you know that people, most of whom get little or no benefit from your service, will be forced to pay you anyway?

JOBLESS GROWTH

CAPRI presented a forum recently on the phenomenon of an economic growth strategy where official unemployment figures are low while a large proportion of employees can be classified as “working poor” and about 700,000 working-age people are outside the job market, but still have to eat and do other normal things which cost money. It’s referred to as jobless growth.

The study concluded that the lowest sector of production is in the area of government services. This, while we are paying out more money ever for those services. How is that sustainable? What is going to be done about it? How does the practice of permanent appointments relate?

Predictably, there is the proposal to import labour to fill the yawning deficit of requisite skills. We are told that the BPO and tourism sectors are hobbled by the low retention rates of employees and their rudimentary competencies. It’s OK to bring in some trainers for nurses, the information technology industry and science teachers. But they should be accommodated only so as to train our own people, for local or export employment.

All the announcements of new HEART/NSTA Trust initiatives last week miss the foundational point. Unless all our children are able to read, compute and behave themselves appropriately by grade three, all the big money spend at higher levels will yield less than optimal dividends.

Literacy is the answer to jobless growth and much of social disorder besides. The collection of schools with which I am connecte, is setting these clear objectives. Socialisation and learning to learn are the only objectives of the one thousand days from conception and through infancy. Thereafter, age-appropriate social, language, numerical and digital skills must be achieved by age nine through a combination of home and school partnerships. All else can be added on to that foundation.

The Economist recently reported that the state of Mississippi in the US has more than halved their child illiteracy in three years by mandating schools to concentrate on these skills from the earliest years. If you haven’t attained the prescribed skills, you aren’t promoted beyond grade three until you have. If they can do it, why can’t we?

We need to stop avoiding these crucial issues.

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