Ronald Thwaites | Delusions about growth

Last week, an editorial in this paper prescribed how Jamaica could resurrect the prospect of five per cent annual GDP growth. Helpful fiscal measures and issues of social reform were put forward. This is an appropriate effort in the circumstance of a renewed political administration and the elusiveness of even half of that much-touted target.

Sadly, the plan as put forward, like all previous iterations, is bound to fail. This is certain because the strategies downplay the critical roadblock of low labour productivity. Increasing the capacity and output of working people is the main antecedent requirement for every other element of growth. Not technology. People.

HIDING

The nation continues to hide from ourselves that somewhere between a third and a half of our school leavers each year are, at worst, profoundly illiterate, innumerate and ill-socialised; at best barely able to navigate the signs, signals and attitudes essential to productive life. How could correcting this have been left out of the growth requirements? What prosperity can grow from the foundation of a population which is more than a third functionally illiterate and innumerate?

QUESTIONS NOT ASKED

Don’t we ask ourselves why it is that Chinese workers are imported rather than relying on local tradesmen? Or why the knowledge outsourcing sector cannot attract contracts requiring complex skills. Why is the health sector dependent on recruits from everywhere?

We pat ourselves on the back at marginal improvements in the Grade 4 PEP results, ignoring the evidence that such satisfactory ratings reflect memory rather than ability to read.

Several of the illiterate students we contend with at Grade 7 got acceptable standing in Grade 4 but were never exposed to phonics, letter-sound recognition, nor ever required to read aloud and be tested for comprehension.

All the boasting about percentages camouflages the gaps in practical competencies. I remember being assured in 2014 or 2015 that we had achieved 85 per cent satisfactory performance in Grade 4 literacy. That did not prove to be so, as those students were placed on the treadmill of automatic promotion. Most graduated with nothing. That is still the case. I challenge the ministry to publish the full 2025 CSEC, CAPE and City & Guilds results.

INFECTIOUS DELUSIONS

Self-delusions and deliberate suppression of reality infect everything. As a topical aside, we lament road victims clogging the health system and cemeteries but fail to acknowledge the inevitability of this carnage when there is no strict, incorruptible system of driver education nor any mandatory retraining as corrective for infractions. If you can’t read, are not of tested behavioural normalcy, you should not be issued a rider’s or driver’s permit. Who is dealing with that?

REALISM IN EDUCATION

Last week, an experienced educator, Ruthlyn James, helpfully pointed out the obvious that the present segmentation of high-school students into the “pathways” effectively streams children into unequal and discriminatory outcomes: All straight-jacketed into the unwieldy National Standards Curriculum with grossly inadequate resources for the majority to thrive.

The high schools we work with are reasonably well equipped with labs, workshops and teachers. Infrastructure is not the main problem. Most of the students are lacking the fundamental tools and attitudes to make proper use of what is provided.

Of course we must do everything possible to remediate at that level but we need to realise that the most effective inflection point is at the early childhood and early-primary stages. Where is the comprehensive impetus for that?

The truth is that there are rigid constraints built into the education superstructure which prevent change, no matter how eloquently ministers promise reform. Three-quarters of the ample education budget is devoted to paying salaries and benefits largely without accountability or measurable deliverables by those who are paid.

Through little fault of their own, there are thousands of teachers, ill-trained and misassigned, all with permanent status. Students who, as James says, are differently abled, get stuffed into standard-size classrooms, force-fed a curriculum which is irrelevant to their capacitiesm because appointed teachers have to be deployed in the subject areas of their hiring.

Crucial educational decisions are being made with more reference to the school’s establishment than to the needs of young people. The society reaps the inevitable consequences even as our leaders (regretfully including the Patterson team) avoid addressing this fundamental problem. Which minister is prepared to take on the teachers’ union?

The national thrust to overhaul the education system as the foundation for peace and inclusive growth does not yet exist. By normalising underperformance and deluding themselves that marginal improvements equate to systemic uplift, our leaders are not culturing far-reaching change. The bi-partisan consensus required to lead a fair renegotiation of the terms of service of teachers has hardly been broached.

Vale Royal is often more important than Gordon House. Its bruk-down condition represents more than physical decrepitude. It depicts the ramshackle state of consensus efforts – not least in education reform.

Meanwhile the teaching profession is justly insulted by a two per cent per annum wage offer and the public short-changed by being forced to pay more for predictably meagre returns while children suffer unforgivable blight.

DASHED OPPORTUNITY

Last week, I learned of some young entrepreneurs who see an advantage in filling with speciality exports much desired by diaspora consumers the empty airplanes and containers which bring imports of everything to Jamaica.

They approached their bank with solid orders. They were asked to put up mortgage security of twice the value of the loan requested. The institution dawdled for months to give a commitment to lend, with huge up-front fees attached, even if collateral were available. Their purchase orders lapsed. So these guys have been introduced to a private lender who requires a yearly return of 25 per cent on the loan. For them, it’s do or die. Guess what! The airplane holds and idle containers are going to stay empty.

Usury was considered a sin in the Middle Ages, not only because it was condemned in the Bible, but because it cramped any hope of increased wealth.

BELIEVING OUR OWN LIES

All this despite the regular self-congratulation about how small business is being facilitated. All this as the government is bleeding capital which should be available for enterprise, either by sanitising billions at everybody’s expense or borrowing it to finance a budget in which likely a quarter is being spent ineffectively. Now, if that isn’t culpable samfi-ism.

“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance” (Thomas Sowell)

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