EDITORIAL - The JTA exposed

Should there have been doubt over the main cause of the disaster that is education in Jamaica, the leadership of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) removed it last week.

That they hung ineptitude, inadequacies, froth and ad hominem attacks out to public scrutiny was bad enough. What is worse is that they seemed genuinely to believe that the standpipe-type cussing of Ronnie Thwaites was serious policy-changing debate.

What was achieved was to cast the JTA as a greedy, grabbing bunch, uncaring of the national welfare so long as the needs of its members are satiated.

We should not forget the context within which the JTA and its brass have been engaging in a type of behaviour that we hope would not be emulated by students.

Jamaica faces a deep economic crisis. It has a national debt of around 140 per cent of GDP, among the worst in the world. That debt is unsustainable. We are being driven by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to put our house in order - to spend less and borrow less.

Teachers are among the public-sector groups being told the splurges of the past are no longer affordable. These include leave of 40 days annually, or one-fifth of the school year, which cannot continue; nor can one year's study leave with full pay, sometimes for courses that bear no relationship to what is taught.

The cost of substitute teachers to cover for those who are away from the classroom, Mr Thwaites told Parliament, is J$2.5 billion annually. That is equivalent to more than three per cent of the education budget or what, until the current fiscal year, was the allocation to the early-childhood sector.

In exchange for their old privileges, the Government has offered to reimburse half the cost of tuition if their course relates to areas of need and urged that they study outside of school time.

Taking shots at the minister

Rather than intellectually engage Mr Thwaites on the supposed inefficacy of his proposed measures, Doran Dixon, a former president of the JTA, alluded to the minister as a "mongrel dawg"; another of the brass suggested that the minister may have been on cocaine; while the organisation's president, Clayton Hall, imputed that Mr Thwaites was a liar.

What is significant about all this is that the JTA takes no responsibility for the fact:

That 30 per cent of the children enter grade one of primary school ill-prepared for learning;

That 40 per cent of the students at grade four are not literate and/or numerate;

That at grade six, 40 per cent are not ready for secondary education;

That by grade nine, 20 per cent of the cohort has left school without any certification;

That at grade 11, only 15 per cent of the age cohort achieves five subjects, including math and English in the CXC secondary-school exams.

What this newspaper looks forward to from the JTA is a fulfilment of its real responsibility: a programme for radically improving education outcomes.

The job of the central education ministry is providing an appropriate curriculum and support services to schools. It is for teachers to translate these into knowledge for students. And they must be held accountable for outcomes, especially in these bad economic times.

Key stakeholders, particularly parents, should take note.

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.