EDITORIAL - The economics of education

Anyone listening to the utterances of the members of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at its sitting this week may have been left wondering whether policymakers recognise their powerful role in advancing the national education improvement targets.

Any debate about education in this country ought to be centred on what kind of initiatives are necessary to steer the best teachers into struggling schools where poor students lack the parental support and are often described as "hard-to-teach".

It is a given that students who come from homes where education is valued are going to learn. The child who has been exposed to books and computers at home arrives at school on day one better prepared for an education. Such a child is likely to learn, even when the teacher is not that great. Given a choice, most teachers will opt for schools populated by students from middle-class homes where the emphasis on education and discipline are likely to be greater.

Poverty-learning ratio

Children from poor homes, where the daily drudge of eking out a living places education way down on the ladder of priorities, often have the hardest time learning. There is definitely a link between high poverty and low student achievement. Some experts argue that a good teacher is the most important component in student achievement. And the question the PAC should try to determine is whether a good teacher in a so-called top-notch school can achieve the same results in an inner-city or deep rural environment.

There is evidence of incompetence in Jamaica's classrooms, but we believe the good outnumber the bad - and while the better teachers are already good at their jobs, the most important thing is to determine how to balance the scales in our country. How do we boost achievement and pull up those who are floundering? If not through education, how can those at the bottom achieve social mobility?

PAC Chairman Dr Omar Davies observed that the matter of incentive pay for summer work was a "politically delicate matter". And we agree - for if we are serious about giving a fighting chance to poor Jamaican children, the country must be prepared to give its blessing to an overhauling of the incentive scheme for teachers.

Performance-based assessments

As with all things, we cannot ignore the fiscal challenges and any incentive scheme has to be accompanied by an evaluation instrument. If we pay more, we should expect more. The Jamaica Teachers' Association appears averse to any form of performance-based assessment - an unreasonable position in our view, and the leadership needs to reconsider this stance.

Many PAC members who appeared dead set against incentives for teaching during the summer represent inner-city communities where additional instructions during the long summer months may just make the difference in the students' perfor-mance. Hard times should not affect our investment in education, for it is the first step in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

Surely, there are creative ways of strengthening an incentive scheme for education, for example, through partnerships with the private sector, parent-teacher associations and charitable foundations.

The truth is that teachers cannot be expected to transform failing schools all on their own. Parents and students must also play their role. But it is the policymakers who hold in their hands the power to implement policies and programmes that will be critical to arriving at a national solution.

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