On Sunday, September 13, Boulevard Baptist Church, as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, will be highlighting the importance of education in our Caribbean context through the agency of the inaugural Eric Downie Memorial Lecture.

Eric Downie served Boulevard Baptist as superintendent of the Sunday school and also as chairman of the diaconate. He was also an outstanding educator, serving as vice-principal of the prestigious Mico Teachers' College, now the Mico University College. Downie had the unique distinction of serving both as president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) and later as its general secretary. He was often a member of the JTA's negotiating team. Undoubtedly, he would be severely tested by the present industrial climate.

Downie was a historian who was acutely aware that in the post-emancipation period, the church played a leading role in providing elementary education for the masses. And he knew that Jamaica needed to provide quality education for the majority and to improve on the results of our pupils. There is a need for the church, State and private sector to collaborate to improve education at all levels - early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary. Downie did not believe that education was for speculative purposes only, but he was an activist scholar. His knowledge led him, as a member of the Jamaica Tourist Board, to oppose the introduction of casino gambling. Do you believe that any member of the JTB would oppose casino gambling?

Major contribution

As another school year, begins it is appropriate that Professor Errol Miller will explore the topic 'Education for a Caribbean Mindset in the 21st century'. Professor Miller is chairman of the Electoral Commission but his major contribution to Jamaica has been in the field of education, serving Mico, the Ministry of Education and the University of the West Indies with distinction.

He is a leading educator and education thinker in this country. I was disappointed when he was not selected as a member of the last administration's transformation education team. Miller has many books to his credit, including the controversial Marginalisation of the Black Male: Insights from the Development of the Teaching Profession and Education for All in the Caribbean in the 1990s. However, my favourite is Jamaican Society and High Schooling. This book has many good recommendations which, if implemented from 1990, would have made Jamaica's educational system on par with that of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

My own view is that Miller's talents could be better utilised in education than as chair of the Electoral Commission. As chairman, he has supervised the implementation of the expensive electronic voting machines. This seems a waste of resources to be used, on an average, every five years. It would have been far better if those computers were deployed in our education enterprise. And so expensive are these machines to operate that they were not used in the last by-elections in Clarendon. And I suspect that in the new economic environment, they will not be used in the next local government elections. Hopefully, one day soon, it will become necessary to have the education system enhanced by the use of sophisticated computers.

Best education thinker

This coming Sunday afternoon, Boulevard Baptist Church is facilitating the Jamaican public to hear from arguably the best education thinker, in Professor Errol Miller, on the topic of 'Education for a Caribbean Mindset in the 21st Century'. The public will be able to ask questions and make comments so that we can arrive at solutions to our education malaise.

Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: The Church in Nation Building'. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.