Polls, GSAT and Barbican redux

Edgerton Chang, GUEST COLUMNIST

In my last column of October 16, 2011, published a week before his swearing-in and written just two weeks after Golding's decision to step down, I wrote:

"With the surprise intended resignation of Prime Minister Bruce Golding and the emergence of his heir apparent, Andrew Holness, we do indeed live in interesting times. These events have forced paradigm shifts in both parties and have energised them to the point that pundits are actually in a quandary as to how things will play out.

"Whatever your political persuasion, I think most will agree with me in saying that at least it now makes the Jamaica Labour Party, which was dead in the water up to three weeks ago, much more competitive."

The just-published RJR/ TVJ/Ian Boxill polls have confirmed my own initial on-the-ground soundings: the election race has indeed got much closer. In fact, the two parties are now in a statistical dead heat, with 35.2 per cent for the JLP and 32.7 per cent for the PNP. If we were to extrapolate that out to 100 per cent, that would mean in real terms 51.84 per cent JLP vs 48.16 per cent PNP, a lead for the JLP of 3.68 per cent.

While a poll is just a snapshot, if this were to prevail on election day, it would mean that the JLP would have outperformed its last election victory of 50.3 per cent and compares favourably with the majority achieved by the PNP (51.6 per cent) in its 2002 victory. This poll was conducted between October 28 and November 3 this year, two to three weeks after I detected this major groundswell, and only targeted persons who have been enumerated.

This column is being published on the very day the JLP's annual conference is being held, and the election, which I predict will be held by February next year with the last week in December (after Christmas) to January being the 'sell-off' period, may actually be a blowout.

GSAT

My letter to the editor titled 'GSAT, first principles and the joy of learning', published June 19, 2009, ended as follows:

"Finally, how many of us parents have tried to do a past GSAT paper? I venture to say that those of us that have would confess that some of the concepts/questions involved are damn hard.

"Come to think about it, how many parents can carry around the weight of the textbooks, etc. required by these GSAT students on a daily basis? I remember when what books I carried to school could be banded together by my belt.

Truth be told, some of these children in grades four, five and six 'work' harder than their parents. Often from seven in the morning to 10-11 at night on school days and frequently on weekends, extra lessons and all. But more on GSAT later."

Perhaps we have taken the joy out of learning in our effort to inculcate (a synonym for hammer) education into our children.

Since then, I have waited for the right opportunity to bring this matter into focus once again. That time is now.

Edward Seaga

No less a person than the chancellor of the University of Technology, Edward Seaga, has recently addressed this GSAT matter, thankfully siding with me and quite a few others.

In a speech to the graduating class of the University of Technology on November 5, 2011, which has been under-reported in the print media, Mr Seaga has taken the GSAT curriculum to task.

To quote:

"Without a proper framework or suitable facilities for homework, thousands of students are inescapably doomed to poor performance in the GSAT admission test to secondary schools.

"This is the case because of an intense curriculum which must be mastered in grade school under strenuous conditions. As a parent of a nine-year-old daughter, I had the opportunity to see some of the curriculum which must be mastered by GSAT students, and I believe that it is safe to say that it is a curriculum which has many aspects more befitting a secondary-school programme. This type of curriculum is an overbearing and excessive burden on young children. It goes well beyond the principle of need-to-know, cramming into little minds unnecessary information which they will soon forget and, in many instances, have the opportunity to learn at a later date in secondary school.

"What is the purpose of pressuring grade-four students to learn now what they will learn more appropriately again in grade seven? Two to three hours of homework nightly for eight- and nine-year-old students borders on hijacking too much of the time required for children to enjoy their childhood years. It is time to review the curriculum to remove unnecessary material and duplication. Give back to the children their childhood, and give to mothers (and fathers) time to enjoy them as mothers (and fathers) rather than, as overbearing taskmasters, punishing instead of loving."

When I was 10, I was told that I had to attend summer school. Being the 11th of 13 children that lived to adulthood, I felt utterly ashamed to know I was the first of my family being required to take extra lessons. My belly hurt every day, and when that didn't work, my head would ache. In those days, one was considered a real dunce to be so required to do additional schooling. Nowadays, it is the norm, almost the 'in' thing. Some parents, including my wife, have resorted to making our children take extra lessons for the extra lessons. I guess one could call this extra extra lessons. This would be laughable if it didn't indict the curriculum and/or the teaching profession.

Finally, the more prized is a 'free place' is the greater the incentive to cheat. Again, I have to ask, is examination of test erasures (routinely analysing suspicious numbers of erasures on standardised school tests as a key method of detecting cheating by teachers or their bosses) being done on a continuous basis?

Barbican Redux

I note that since my last column, 'What has Barbican done to deserve this?', the stretch of road I referred to has finally been fixed, after some two years. What is disconcerting, however, is that the National Works Agency has since turned its attention to scoring a 'perfectly' good section of Barbican Road (between Millsborough Avenue and Widcombe Road) in order to lay down new 'barber-green' asphalt. Couldn't a different road in worse condition be found (like Edgecombe Avenue) to be resurfaced? What a waste!

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