Peter Espeut's article 'Elitist Education' (March 20) is right on the button. He has put into words all my thoughts on this backward education system that our children have to endure. I

f you are in the system, you will experience, first-hand, the atrocities that are heaped on our children daily. It amounts to child abuse if you ask me, and the Government is pleased, about the "Child Protection Act". We need to be protected from their system.

How, in this day and age, you can have 50,000 children trying to secure a place out of approximately 15,000 places? So we, as a nation, are telling our children from they are as young as 10 years old that, even with an 80 per cent or higher average, they're not good enough to be placed at a 'decent school'.

Change of name

The former 'secondary schools' have changed their names on the gate of the school to 'high school' and thus this illusion of more spaces; but little has been done to upgrade them.

Until our education system can educate the ordinary man, we will not move forward and our crime problem will never be solved. Our boys, especially, are disadvantaged, with no one examining how they learn and how to motivate them.

The blame is often placed on the parents, but what about the children who have 'good parents', who attend school everyday, do their work and still cannot make it unless they go to extra lessons and have parents who can coach them and with computer access at home etc.?

Lend an ear

So, if I am poor and illiterate, that means my child can't get an education because I can't help with homework etc.

The ministry of education needs to listen to the people who are in the system, namely the children who are suffering.

I am, etc.,

MICHELE HENRY

Michele.iya@cwjamaica.com

Kingston