Editorial | Financing education

Nigel Clarke, the finance minister, thought it important last week to highlight how little, as a proportion of the national wealth, Jamaica spends on early-childhood learning, compared to Caribbean neighbours and other segments of the domestic education system. Indeed, he made a point of noting that the island’s education expenditure was in favour of the tertiary sector.

The clear implication from Dr Clarke’s remarks at the 41st biennial conference of the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) is that there is a need to rebalance the spend. What, however, neither the finance minister nor his colleague at the education ministry, Fayval Williams, has done is to say how this is to be achieved, or engage in a full-throated public discussion of the question. Or, for that matter, on anything in the Orlando Patterson Commission that was tasked with proposing fixes to Jamaica’s education system, which for decades has delivered subpar outcomes – such as those highlighted in its report delivered nearly two years ago.

In the 2019 Primary Exit Profile exams for grade-six students (mostly in the 11 to 12 age range), only 41 per cent passed in mathematics, while 55 per cent made the grade in language arts.

“A breakdown of the language arts results indicated that a third of students at the end of primary school could not read, 56 per cent could not write, and 57 per cent could not identify information in a simple sentence,” Patterson reported.

The performances improved in this year’s exams (60 per cent were proficient in language arts and 57 per cent in mathematics). There is still, though, a long way to go to overcome the crisis.

It is, however, not only at the lower end of the scale that the problem exists. In 2018, Patterson pointed out, 70 per cent of students left high school without certificates, and of those who do the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams, only 28 per cent pass five subjects, including maths and English, at a single sitting.

POOR OUTCOMES

These poor outcomes, as Dr Clarke reminded at the CUT conference, were despite Jamaica spending more, as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) than its Caribbean comparators – 5.2 per cent in 2019 against the region’s 4.9 per cent. That year, Jamaica allocated 19 per cent of its Budget to education, compared to 15 per cent of the Caribbean as a whole. The spend on education as a proportion of GDP and the Budget will slip this year – to 4.9 per cent and 14.1 per cent, respectively, in part because of adjustments forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The point, nonetheless, is clear.

Added the finance minister: “One interesting analysis coming out of that review is ... when you dig further and you look further on spending per capita, and spending per student as a percentage of GDP per capita ... what you find is that in Jamaica at the pre-primary level, we are spending seven per cent of our GDP per child versus 13 per cent in countries of the Caribbean.”

On the other hand, Jamaica spends comparatively more at the tertiary level than its Caribbean counterparts: 35 per cent per student of per capita GDP, against 22 per cent for the Caribbean as a whole.

“... [W] hat the data suggests, which accords with the qualitative analysis, is that we are underspending at the pre-primary level, which educators say is the more important level, and – I must be careful with how I say this – on a relative basis, overspending at the tertiary level, where the returns on education are mostly private ...,” Dr Clarke said.

The deeper point here, as the minister expressed it, is that the returns on education at the early-childhood/pre-primary and primary levels represent a public good “because the society benefits from most people having a basic-level education”.

REBALANCING EXPENDITURES

The Patterson Commission called for a rebalancing of expenditures in favour of the early-childhood and primary sectors. Until Dr Clarke’s intervention, it was not a matter that the Government had forthrightly addressed, despite the urgings of this newspaper and a handful of other stakeholders.

As Dr Clarke said, the balancing act for the Government is to increase public spending at the pre-primary level (J$7.05 billion or 4.9 per cent of this year’s recurrent allocation for education) while “ensuring that we have means-based financing of tertiary level expenditure”.

“[T]hat is not an easy thing, nor is it something that can be done without the support of organisations, such as the organisation represented here today,” he said.

That is, of course, true. Which is why the public discussion of the matter urged by this newspaper, and others, is necessary and urgent.

Indeed, a critical takeaway from Dr Clarke’s remarks is that Jamaica’s tertiary institutions can expect little in additional support or subsidies from the national treasury. They will have to be resourceful and creative in covering their expenditures, while remaining relevant in their offerings to national development.

That is a signal which should command the attention of Professor Densil Williams, the incoming principal of The University of the West Indies, Mona, and Dr Kevin Brown, who is soon to assume the presidency of the University of Technology, Jamaica.

Professor Williams, well ahead of getting the job, had placed on Jamaica’s agenda income-contingent loans for tertiary students and proposed it as a potential asset class for institutions, like pension funds, that have long-term money to invest. Given Minister Clarke’s posture, working through this idea, including stress-testing for Jamaica’s environment, should not be delayed any longer.