Ronald Thwaites | Choices matter

So, finally, there is public admission of what we all knew from daily experience: that the government is unable to meet the cost of good education for everyone. 

What a deceitful charade this has been. I remember a meeting with the late great Oliver Clarke in The Gleaner's boardroom in 2016 when a government minister boastfully insisted that his government would fulfil Michael Manley's promise of “free education” by the abolition of auxiliary fees.

That dangerous fiction has persisted since. School enrichment programmes have been obliterated, principals made part-time beggars, and education standards weakened. 

There was the school which, facing reality, had continued pressing the mostly civil servants’ parents to contribute,  and was obliged to refund millions of dollars because “Minister seh wi no fi pay. Ministry sen nuff money”.

A valuable lesson has not been learned. Nothing of value is free. It is always paid for by someone. Not even salvation is free. It has been paid for by the shedding of precious blood. 

Then, there is the question of priorities. One school I know, where parents contribute very little, had the idea of improving manners and etiquette by hosting a formal hotel dinner for the teenagers. You should have seen the expensive hairstyles, dresses and shoes. No economies there or for the school trip to Miami. And don’t even talk about affording the graduation packages coming up this month.

Of course, many families genuinely can’t afford to pay much, if anything, towards school costs. School social workers (pray that they will soon be provided!) know the needy cases. Those children must be deprived of nothing essential. 

What could be more pathetic and wasteful than youngsters lugging huge bags of expensive books which they cannot read? Or the millions spent by the ministry to buy books every year which end up never being distributed or used. 

REFORM

If a bipartisan group were to seriously and bravely interrogate what the present hefty education budget was being spent on with primary focus on schoolchildren’s progress, there would be initial dislocation but, beyond that, much better outcomes and a transformed picture of where and how much additional resources are required. While we fiddle around solutions, another generation is being lost.

RECONFIGURE HEART

Mr Linvern Wright is right. One key element of realigned expenditure would involve the cash-rich HEART/NSTA Trust which has no business anywhere but tethered with education and training. Their big money ought to be spent on sponsoring Levels 1 & 2 training and certification in all high schools, then the delivery, supervision and accreditation of higher-level skills through widespread apprenticeship. 

Last week, I witnessed the formal opening of the Sav Inclusive Primary School.  This suite of schools is a partnership between Government and the Rockhouse Foundation who have invested billions of dollars to build out a state-of-the-art campus where differently abled children and their parents are offered hope and progress. It is one of a kind. The schools cater for the most undeserved and vulnerable. There is a distinctly empathetic vibe there. Not surprisingly, there are six applicants for every available place.

Rockhouse and Skylark hotels engage their staff and guests in the conceptualizsng, building and operation of these schools. Paul Salmon, chief of the hard-headed businesspersons who own the hotels, described philanthropy as a pillar of their investment model – not an optional extra or a look-good marketing jag. Suppose that principle were to be the norm for all foreign investors? That would be transformative rather than extractive. 

ASSERTIVE CITIZENRY

 After this long and foolish escapade with State-proclaimed “freeness” which has hurt more than it has helped, we citizens must realise that we have to save, sacrifice and contribute more to educate our children, prize and promote partnerships, and watch closely how the more than $200 billion of our money is spent each year.  

Look in the big yellow Budget book and note that the Administration’s estimate for expenditure on education over the next three years will barely keep up with rising inflation levels. Then, ask yourself where the remaining money is going to come from. Funding and delivering quality-inclusive education has to become the highest personal and national priority alongside health. 

WASTE

Travelling on the East-West highway, observe the vast acreage of mostly irrigated land lying fallow. If bush were an export crop, Jamaica would be wealthy. Why do we burden our countrymen abroad and the tourism sector to keep the economy barely afloat when the natural resource of fertile land is wasted, rural poverty increases while we sterilise billions of savings each week curtailing resources to grow food for ourselves and the world?  

MAINTAINING ‘PERSISTENT POVERTY’

The economic model, like the educational model, is deficient, and we are too lazy and scornful of each other to transform it.  We have replaced the canefields with swaths of scrub land populated by stray cows and goats, ripe for squatting because there is nowhere else to go, no matter how Messrs Montague and Holness inveigh.

The rusty skeleton of the Bernard Lodge factory looks like an abandoned tombstone. Once-profitable Inswood, Monymusk, Holland, Frome and other estates produce little or nothing. Farm associations have atrophied. Imports rise, food costs increase, and exports decline. Why? 

When last was there a discussion or debate about land reform or agricultural productivity?  Check how little of the $10 billion available for school feeding in the Budget will be spent on locally grown food.

Our colonisers set out to exploit us to afford their prosperity. By what flight of folly do we, on the eve of our 64th anniversary of Independence, continue to impoverish ourselves, prevaricate about the crippling poison of energy costs, and beguile ourselves with the lie that prosperity is nigh.

Are we building a City of God or a Tower of Babel?  Choices matter.

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.