The cardinal sin of underfunding schools
THE CONTEXT of the Educate Jamaica’s ranking of high schools is flawed. Jamaica lacks the fiscal and social foundations to attain homogeneous excellence in secondary education. The populist political expedience of standardising mediocrity in education at this level is a betrayal of the country. It is based on inadequate Government subvention to secondary schools, especially traditional high schools, that prior to the 1957 amendment of the Education Act to open them up to public access, were exclusive private trust and faith-based institutions obligated to honour the wishes of their benefactors and owners to put a premium on producing model scholars of virtuous character.
No political administration has ever honoured the stated or implied commitment of the referenced legislation to adequately fund acceptable standardised secondary education under the euphemistically described policy of democratisation.
In exchange for imposing on the population control, deemed necessary by traditional legacy schools to fulfil their commitment to excellence, successive governments have made inadequate token grants for tuition, and administration, in arrears, and have been negligent in the provision of additional classrooms and infrastructure to accommodate the increased student population.
Coming straight out of writing an account of the History of Jamaica College, commissioned for publication by the Jamaica College Foundation, the school is the most convenient example for me to use to illustrate my point.
Up to the start of the 1960s, JC had a high pedigree. Funding was not an obstacle to its progress. However, the 1957 amendment of the Education Act signalled a permanent negative change in the school’s character, since it was apparently not inspired by good faith. It proved the similarity of the opposing political administration in their indifference towards standardising excellence in education.
POORLY PLANNED TRANSITION
The Common Entrance Examination was introduced in 1957 to award those who passed it government-subsidised free places to the traditional legacy high schools. It was a poorly planned transition that is still not corrected more than 50 years later. The physical infrastructure and human resources required at the schools for the transition to succeed was addressed in a piecemeal fashion, while doubling and tripling school populations was already in progress. The Government must have thought these schools were sitting on piles of endowment cash reserves that it could force them to exhaust and keep its contribution at a minimum.
The decline in academic performance and corresponding rise in indiscipline are features of the underfunding of schools, which compromises control and constrains delivery of the appropriate curriculum prescription. The change from Common Entrance to GSAT and now PEP are from the stubborn political resistance to putting education at the top of the economic and social-building food chain. The political party diehards have fallen for this curry-goat political trap.
Jamaica College was brought to the edge of the precipice of ruin in the 1960s. In the aftermath of the principal’s departure, the school was forced to end boarding because of the rising deficit caused by late and lower-than-expected subventions.
The restrictions on school fees applied for by traditional high schools, placed by the incumbent minister of education, has a familiar historical character. Reid is a former president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and was seconded to the ministership. It is no secret that his colleagues in the teaching profession are displeased with his conduct towards them as minister. Underfunding is a significant factor.
It is time to address the common law injustice of underfunding perpetrated for too long by the Government of Jamaica, especially against the traditional legacy high schools.