Editorial - Good early childhood initiative

The unreasonable and noisy effort by teachers to cling to their overgenerous and unaffordable leave and study entitlements has so far overshadowed another important policy initiative by Ronnie Thwaites. Jamaicans should pay attention.

For the current fiscal year, nearly 15 per cent, or approximately J$11 billion, of the Government's J$75-billion education budget will be spent on the early-childhood sector.

That ratio is five times the level of 2012-13's and hopefully signals the start of a serious rebalancing of the education budget along the lines that this newspaper, and others, have long advocated. The additional expenditure is in line with what the experts estimate is necessary to begin to deal with the problem at this end of the education spectrum.

Indeed, our failure, over a long time, to adequately fund early-childhood education - the foundation of the system - has had predictably poor outcomes.

As Mr Thwaites, the education minister, reminded in his parliamentary address last week, perhaps a third of the children who leave early-childhood institutions do not satisfy the learning profile for grade one. And there starts what Mr Thwaites termed "an escalator of failure".

For example, at grade four, more than 40 per cent of the students do not master the age-appropriate proficiencies for literacy and numeracy and at grade six a similar proportion is not ready for secondary education.

By grade nine, a fifth of the cohort leave/drop out of school. Of those who make it to grade 11, only half write five subjects in the Caribbean Examinations Council's secondary exams and just over half of the students who take the exams pass English and 38 per cent math.

Measured against the entire cohort, a mere 38 per cent pass English and the rate for math tumbles to 20 per cent.

It is against this backdrop that education officials estimate that J$20 billion annually, a sum equivalent to a quarter of the education budget, is spent in remedial efforts. This cannot be the best way to spend limited resources. It must be better to get it right the first time, starting at the early- childhood sector.

QUALITY CHALLENGES

At present, the bulk of early-childhood education is provided by nearly 2,000 community-based 'basic' schools, many of which, though government supported, are ramshackle, with untrained or undertrained teachers and lacking in learning aids.

An upgrading programme for teachers in this sector has been slow. But according to Mr Thwaites, this year early childhood and special- education training will be provided to 500 underdeployed teachers.

Additionally, more than 500 existing basic schools will be merged into the infant departments of 179 primary schools that have space. We expect the appropriate discussions have begun with the operators of the basic schools to be absorbed.

Another important initiative is the planned common curriculum, emphasising appropriate social habits and character formation, as well as the planned extension of the School Feeding Programme to basic schools.

If Mr Thwaites can translate these declarations into concrete action, assuming there is no derailment by the teachers' union, he could well achieve his target of an annual increase of 10 per cent, or better, in grade one readiness. The dividends would be greater further up the education chain.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.