Editorial | C’bar old boys cynical?

​It is not clear what specific objections the old boys’ and parent-teacher associations have against Sian Wilson’s possible elevation as principal of Calabar High School. Whatever those are may be legitimate and should be heard.

Nonetheless, this newspaper finds it highly objectionable, and wholly inappropriate – in the absence of those – that the old boys’ association would, in this moment, suspend their mentorship programme for the Calabar students, and that their decision would be supported by the PTA.

It is a little bit, as the saying goes, like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Everything suffers – nose included.

Or as Wilson reminded that in this situation it is the welfare of the students that is paramount. “... We all have to remember that the objective is the child, the objective is the student … ,” she said.

Calabar, an all-boys’ institution founded by the Baptist Church, is, by reputation, one of Jamaica’s elite high schools. Its graduates include many outstanding Jamaicans who contribute in all walks of life.

In recent decades, though, while the school has cemented its place as a major force in high school sports, especially track and field athletics (it won the annual boys’ athletics championship for six consecutive years between 2012 and 2018), its academic performance has been less than stellar.

EXAMINATION RATING

In 2023, for instance, based on an analysis by Educate Jamaica, an organisation that tracks the examination performance of the island’s secondary schools, Calabar ranked 25th of the 149 designated high schools with respect to results in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. It was sixth among all-boys schools.Education Jamaica’s ranking is based on the proportion of a school’s grade-11 cohort who end this phase of their schooling with passes in at least five subjects, including maths and English, in CSEC exams.

In some respects, Calabar’s ranking is flattered by the overall poor education outcomes. Last year, only 58 per cent of its students met Education Jamaica’s minimum criteria. Moreover, there was a 22 percentage points gap between Calabar and the top-performing all-male school, Wolmer’s Boys’, 80 per cent of whose students had, by grade 11, passed at least five subjects, including maths and English, at CSEC.

Further, Calabar trailed the overall top-performing high school, Immaculate Conception High School for girls, and the top co-ed school, Campion College, by 41 and 40 percentage points, respectively.

Moreover, when the Patterson Commission on education transformation employed a broader matrix, including examination outcomes at CSEC and the higher CAPE examinations as well as the preparedness of students for secondary education when they entered high school and where they ended, Calabar’s ranking was 40th.

This perception of Calabar’s poor academic profile was further cemented by data from an internal assessment report compiled by the Excellence in Education Committee of the school’s parent-teacher association, published by this newspaper on Monday detailing students’ weak performance ahead of the CSEC exams.

GOALS HAVE LAGGED

Like many Jamaican high schools, Calabar has faced problems of discipline, including instances of members of the school’s sporting teams allegedly asserting their elite status to defy or engage in physical altercations with teachers.

In recent weeks, too, Calabar students have been in street fights with students of Mona High School that required intervention by the police and education authorities. Indeed, one day last week, student leaders from both schools addressed Mona High’s morning assembly to pledge peace.

This is part of the backdrop against which Wilson, formerly a deputy principal for the lower school, was, eight months ago, appointed by the Baptist Church-dominated board to act as Calabar’s head teacher after the resignation of long-time principal Albert Corcho. Both the old boys’ association and the PTA have made clear their opposition to Wilson being given the job permanently. We can only assume that these important stakeholders have concluded that Wilson lacks the skills to lift Calabar out of its academic mediocrity.

In 2018, the old boys’ association’s president, David Miller, said that the school had launched initiatives with the “objective of having more than 85 per cent of our students graduate at an ‘employable’ level”.

Miller did not indicate a time frame for this transformation but quoted Educate Jamaica as saying that significant gains were expected from the school’s investments in two years. On the face of it, those goals have lagged.

This newspaper is not in a position to evaluate either Wilson’s pedagogic or management skills or how she has been performing as principal. She may well not be the person to lead Calabar.

But the mentorship programme should not be used as a lever to that end, if that is what is being attempted by the old boys’ association. In fact, it seems highly cynical that they should shelve the initiative just when it seems to be needed most.