Why we attend high school

ORVILLE HIGGINS had an article in The Gleaner of Saturday, September 8, 2018, titled ‘Why do we attend high school?’ This article, he claimed, was prompted by a discussion he had with a teacher concerning the action of Calabar High in preventing students advancing to fifth form for failing to meet the school’s academic requirements. There are many other commentators who have weighed in on this issue.

Mr Higgins argues that schools are there not only for academic reasons but, to paraphrase, to be involved in character formation. What is it that differentiates schools (and particularly high schools) from these other institutions such as clubs and interest groups? The raison d’être of schools is academic education.

The questions for Mr Higgins and the other commentators who have derided the actions of Calabar are the following:

1. Do schools have a right to set a minimum academic standard? This question stands if one holds the view that the reason for schools is academic pursuit.

2. Since the academic work of higher grades builds on the mastery of material from lower grades, should students who have failed to sufficiently master the material of lower grades be allowed to proceed to higher grades? If the answer is yes, we should not be surprised that such students are unable to benefit from the academic programme of the higher grades.

3. If students who have failed to master the academic programme of the lower grades should not automatically be allowed to advance, does Mr Higgins and others recognise that there is a capacity problem if too many students are to repeat a grade?

Some commentators have suggested that not all children are ‘bright’ and, therefore, strict academic standards discriminate against such students. In Jamaica, for the most part, students are placed into various high schools based on two things: (1) their preference – i.e., their desire to attend a particular school, and (2) their ACADEMIC performance at age 11-12 in the GSAT examinations.

For popular schools, there are far more children seeking to enter than there are places available, which means the children with the highest academic scores receive the limited spaces.

Given the great competition for limited spaces at popular schools, it is unlikely that the scores of those who gain admission to a particular school would be significantly different from each other. This implies that students entering popular schools would have demonstrated that they are roughly identical in academic ability and they have signalled sufficient ability to be able to benefit from the school’s academic programme.

ACADEMIC PURSUIT

If some students are doing significantly worse than others, in the same school, after four or five years, the reason is unlikely to be found in a difference in abilities or ‘brightness’, as some commentators suggest. A more likely explanation could be found in difference in the application of the students towards academic pursuits.

Some commentators have suggested that an average of 60 per cent is unreasonably high. There is no absolute 60 per cent that is standardised across all schools. Different schools use different scales.

No doubt, there are adults in the society who will claim that they were poor students and they turned out just fine, which would not have happened if they were separated from school for poor academic performance. No doubt, this is true.

But public policy should not be made on the basis of individual experiences. Each student in a school affects all the other students. There is a much greater chance of a disruptive child being an underachiever than being average or an overachiever. Having many children in school who are underachievers has a negative effect on all the other children in his/her class.

This is compounded when the academic underachiever is a hero within the school because of sporting or other prowess. Other children mimic the behaviour of these heroes. A class with many underachievers also implicitly sets the academic bar lower for all other students.

So while there are many persons who were poor academic performers who turned out fine, there are also others, less visible, who would have done better had they had a more stimulating academic environment. Their dreams were sacrificed in order to facilitate underachievers.

My question for Mr Higgins and the other commentators who agree with his line of reasoning is, what is the socially desirable trade-off here between keeping underachievers and blighting the life prospects of others?