Ronald Thwaites | Root causes

What is the point of the Prime Minister and the Central Bank Governor bemoaning low productivity If they are not dealing with illiteracy first? Do we know of any productive country where up to half of primary school leavers are seriously deficient in reading, numeracy and behavioural skills? This superficiality of public discourse on what it will take to move the country forward is frightening. Government is anxious for us to applaud them for an annual two per cent GDP growth. It is better than recession but is totally inadequate to culture the attitudes and habits and provide the services required for the flourishing of all Jamaicans. What other objectives matter?

DIZZY MINDS

Instead of doubling down on such an issue last week, we busied our dizzy minds with subjects which can only take us backward into poverty of spirit, despair and social fragmentation. Our government continues a pilgrimage of wrongfootedness which reminds those with long memories of 1971, 1989 and 2011.

How else can you describe the expenditure of half a billion of taxpayers dollars to pay rent to MP Dunn and the uber-rich Scotia people, to rent properties which remain unused? Then our high officials double down and defend their profligacy as being ultimately good for us all. Which private company or individual would run their business like that? Neither Scotia nor Dunn would. Which high-chested minister and permanent secretary could have sanctioned this waste?

SCAMMING VERSION 2?

The Minister of Finance and the St Mary MP must do better than that. Both landlords should give back the money for which the public has not received any commensurate benefit.. Procurement requirements could never demand throwing away that kind of money. And when we have invested another billion in upgrading somebody else’s building , how is that recovered when the landlord breaks the lease or defaults on a mortgage for which the property is pledged? Why haven’t the actual leases been exposed to the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee?

So the order of the day is hand-wringing about low productivity, only quattie available to banish illiteracy but plenty money to waste and, as most suspect, to fatten friends and concubines. This is prosperity?

And while beggars can’t be choosers and must never be ungrateful, the announced increases in PATH benefits cannot supply a week’s meagre diet for the beneficiary . Minister Charles, please don’t disappoint us by doing futile detective cross-examination on Markie’s or Matthew’s passport details when we are depending on your undoubted acumen to persuade Caesar to do better for the multiplying number of the poorest.

GREEN CARD MPs TOO

And then, if the rationale against dual citizenship by legislators is the fear of divided loyalties and the imputed immorality of those among them who hedge their bets about Jamaica, then logic will require exclusion of persons with permanent residency in the United States or elsewhere as well. Green Card holders after all, can chip out of Jamaica for good on any of the more than “five flights a day” whenever things get hot. So surely they too are among the conflicted. Take a poll of Green Card holders in Gordon House and watch the bam-bam.

More constructively, convene a representative Constitutional Reform Committee, for the first time at last, and determine, within our global context, what really ought to be the criteria to establish eligibility to govern Jamaica.

And isn’t it beyond pathetic that those who would deny indisputably loyal and capable dual citizens a legislative or executive role, are nonetheless devoted to foreign judges most of whom have never even visited us, to continue being the final arbiters of our laws!? Andrew, Marlene, Delroy are you among these?

ON DISCIPLINE

Again, poor Delroy. Look how he puts out a half-baked but very well scientifically- grounded proposal to do away with corporal punishment only to have Fayval walk-back his statement on behalf of a government mortally afraid of inevitable negative public reaction. Half-baked because there are already laws prohibiting child abuse and because in matters like these law is not an effective vehicle for changing behaviour.

But there is a bigger problem. In schools and at home, many young Jamaicans are renk, disrespectful and disengaged and parents and teachers do not have effective non-physical ways of correcting them. Detentions and suspensions for in-school misbehaviour are of little meaning. In the home, having functional parents is the prerequisite for non-violent correction. Our culture and economy do not promote or reinforce good parenting. Our political and social establishment ignore the root causes of youth violence at our peril.

GRADUATION AND PRIORITIES

At one excellent primary school with which I am familiar, the “auxiliary fee” which, contrary to government policy, is requested but often resisted, is $12,000 for a year or $63 per school day. This covers the huge gaps in public funding and provides security, health, co-curricular and socio-emotional support services which contribute greatly to the quality of the institution. For Grade One admission next September, the school has over 2,000 applications for 200 places.

Contrast that with the charge of $15,000 required for Grade 6 graduation expenses. Nor does this figure include the ballroom gowns, the nails resembling eagles’ talons or the expensive tall hair which must also be afforded on pain of mortal embarrassment.

Our prevailing values, reinforced stubbornly by ministry policy, allow parents to avoid contributing to what will help their child to flourish while splurging on a brief spectacle which, though symbolic, adds nothing to quality outcomes. When are we going to face the fact that show-off does not represent achievement; that poppy-show derogates from substance? Minister Williams’ plea for graduation moderation is correct. But it is too little and too late. At the school I’m telling you about, twice as many parents have already paid the graduation fee as have paid the auxiliary fee.

No single political or social tendency is capable of convincingly addressing and bringing about transformational change. Isn’t that clear to us yet?

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com