Ed McCoy of Bokeelia, Florida, USA, in a quick response to my last column, has called my 'Vision for education' elitist. His letter, published in last Saturday's Gleaner under the caption 'Educational nonsense', accused me (and President Obama) of "pandering to the popular". Brother Ed states that even though we have "good intentions", we are "misguided and misinformed people" and we "have a habit of listening to other misguided and misinformed people and then doing misguided and misinformed things about it".
I don't know Brother Ed, but I would like to thank him for caring enough about Jamaica and us Jamaicans to write a letter to the editor. I am also trying hard to understand his position. He is correct that elitism is "the belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favoured treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status or financial resources". What I am not clear about is how my position is elitist.
A 2004 World Bank Report, titled 'The Road to Sustained Growth in Jamaica', states on page 28: "Poor students get tracked into lower quality schools, and their home environment exacerbates the situation. Richer children receive better quality education. Students from affluent families attend private preparatory primary schools and pay for extra tutoring to prepare for the end of the primary cycle (grade six) examination. This better preparation allows them to be placed in better schools - in 2000, about 43 per cent of students in all-age schools were from the poorest quintile, while over half of the students in the academic, traditional high schools were from the top two quintiles."
Education-class link
What the World Bank is saying is that there is a strong link between access to education in Jamaica and economic class. It is the present Jamaican education system created over the last decades by successive Jamaica Labour Party and People's National Party governments and paid for by taxpayers' money that is elitist - where poorer children get lower-quality education and better-off children get better-quality education.
I have argued over the last 17 years in this column for an end to this elitist system. I have argued that it is unconscionable that taxpayers' money is being spent to pay for this elitist education system which advantages the children of the rich and disadvantages the children of the poor. My vision is for education that "must educate ordinary Jamaicans to become the drivers of the economy, to become entrepreneurs, so we can grow ourselves out of our underdevelopment". I do not understand why Brother Ed calls my position "educational nonsense".
In his letter, Brother Ed makes the following curious point: "Apparently, both Obama and Espeut believe that all we have to do, in the United States or Jamaica, for example, in order to solve all our problems, is to give enough people the 'right' education, obviously, so that they can say to hell with unskilled labour and the ignorant masses who will always be forced to do it. Simply put, this is elitist thinking at its very worst."
Understanding Brother Ed
I think I am beginning to understand Brother Ed. He wants me to give the same value to unskilled labour and skilled labour. Because I want to offer poor Jamaicans the best education, so that they can achieve their full potential, and can become the best they can be, and in the process contribute to Jamaica's GDP and economic growth, I am being elitist. I should want them to remain unskilled, at the bottom of the labour force and the society. And Brother Ed calls my position "educational nonsense"!
Talking about the GSAT, a front-page story in yesterday's Gleaner announced that "almost 50,000 grade-six students are registered to sit the examination, which is in its 10th year". To me, that is shocking news! About 120,000 children are in the age cohort to take the GSAT, and there are about 80,000 children in grade six. Why haven't all the children been given the chance to fail the GSAT? And why in this day and age are there only 15,000 places in top-quality high schools? Why in 21st century Jamaica is taxpayers' money being used to fund an elite educational system?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.