Who’s fit for the job?
ONLY 33 1/3 per cent of Jamaicans have a high-school diploma. Let that sink in.
So says the Ministry of Education. According to no less than the minister himself, two out of every three people in Jamaica have no high-school diploma. The highest institution that issued them a piece of paper also taught them how to tie their shoelaces and how to look left and right before they cross the street.
How exactly are we to achieve prosperity or progress or any other Pword with this bunch? How can we walk around in a bubble and have the nerve to sing praises about 9.6 per cent unemployment when two-thirds of the population are actually unemployable.
“I was the fastest runner in blue house” and “I was often selected to ring the lunchtime bell” are not accomplishments you can put on a résumé.
Having a high-school diploma doesn’t make you a better or more worthy human being than anybody else. Not having that piece of paper doesn’t banish you to become a burden to your family and society. But not being a high-school graduate sure makes earning a living a heck of a lot harder. No one wants to hire you without a high-school diploma, maths and English. Those are the most basic, entry-level position requirements. And rightfully so.
To make ends meet, the man without a high-school diploma will have to hustle. And even the hustler would be a better hustler with that additional piece of paper to his name. A fisherman who can’t price his fish fails before he even casts his net. A taxi driver who can’t calculate change may as well park the car. A helper who can’t read a shopping list will find herself replaced.
How are we planning for those who have been left behind in school? The BPO jobs and the logistics hub jobs and the tourism jobs will all need to be staffed by people with high-school diplomas. Where are the jobs being created for the other twothirds of Jamaica? Where is the plan to ensure that this unemployable two-thirds don’t become career criminals?
I’m not saying if you don’t finish school, you MUST become a criminal. That would be dumb. We all have people in our lives, past and present, who never had the luxury of education and they were still stand-up Jamaican citizens who fed their families and made us proud.
What I am saying is that in today’s reality of lottery scamming and easy money and guns and gangs, the frustration of being ill-fit for work is more likely to lead our grandsons to crime than it did our grandfathers. Reality.
WHO IS TO BLAME?
The fault isn’t 100 per cent of those who failed high school. The painful reality is that high school also failed them. Last year, we spent J$98.5 billion on education. Approximately J$95 billion the year before. Did every child learn what they were taught? If not, why not? And what was done about it? It’s a cycle of not answering and addressing these issues that has got us here. Yes, we have lazy students and uninterested parents. But something else is amiss.
What exactly is going wrong at the high-school level? Is it the curriculum? Only 18 per cent of school leavers (not to be confused with school graduates) have any sort of technical qualification. Are we trying to teach algebra to kids who should be taught electrical engineering, and sewing and hairdressing instead? Is the student who passes all the technical subjects and fails literature and history being punished by school systems?
Are the teachers what’s wrong? Do teachers feel like failures when their students fail. If not, that’s a problem. You’re a problem.
Are classrooms the problem? Administrators? Canteen offerings? School transportation? What? With all the money we spend on education, we have to get better results. One out of three with a high-school degree just isn’t good enough.