Jamaica votes - Parties agree more on Jamaica's education

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller dances as she presents the People's National Party (PNP) candidates at a mass meeting in Half-Way Tree, St. Andrew, on Sunday, July 8. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Bruce Golding with supporters at his party's Mandeville rally, on Sunday, July 1. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Published in the Jamaica Gleaner : Friday | August 24, 2007

In a country where seven out of every 10 Jamaicans fail to achieve five or more passes at CXC, the education debate is always a lively one in election year. In this season, tongues have been wagging heatedly around the issue of whether or not high school students should pay fees.

The PNP favours the continuation of cost sharing but the JLP wants to abolish it. But this is really a sideshow; the price tag on free education is a modest one, and both parties propose to spend far more money on other pledges. Also, the manifestos show more agreement than disagreement: they agree to expand e-learning, introduce performance management systems, eliminate the shift system, institute homework programmes, institute compulsory school attendance, build schools for special needs children and expand teacher training. They both commit to building new primary and secondary schools, and both promise to employ remedial specialists to help support illiterate and troubled students.

Education a vital link

Disagreements exist in the manifestos' treatment of early childhood education. It is now widely agreed that this has been the most neglected yet vital link in the education chain. The PNP reaffirms a commitment to full literacy with their slogan: 'Every child can learn, every child must', and seems to put this rhetoric into action: the party intends to introduce the licensing of early basic schools and to complete a proper curriculum by September 2007.

The JLP, of course, proposes to 'change course'. It plans to establish stand-alone infant schools and infant departments at selected primary schools to increase the availability of places. They also commit to providing grants to private basic schools to enable them to meet the minimum standards prescribed by the Early Childhood Act. The JLP plans to ensure a maximum class size of 20 for all basic schools - not an impossible goal since the government has already improved the teacher student ratio to 1:21.

Nonetheless, agreement on early childhood education does exist. Both parties wantto promote better parenting techniques so that even from their homes children are better prepared to learn. Both parties also want basic school teachers to have basic qualifications. Currently, a dismal nine out of 10 teachers at that level are not trained. The JLP wants at least one trained teacher in each basic school and Level 2 certification for other early childhood practitioners. Both parties also converge on developing a standardised early childhood curriculum if elected to be the next government.

The JLP has also committed to ensuring that teachers at the various levels - early childhood education, primary and secondary - will all be graduates possessing a B.A. in their specialised area. The manifesto does not, however, state how this upgrading will be funded, nor how long it would take.

If we assume they plan to fulfil this pledge in their next term of office, which is what manifestos ordinarily propose to do, CaPRI's estimate is that it would cost $12.6 billion over five years. The PNP proposes to achieve this same goal, but to spread it over the next eight years, which would reduce the annual cost, but probably only marginally. As with all CaPRI estimates, we employed a conservative methodology in reaching these figures, so actual amounts could be much greater.

No focus on technical, vocational training

There is one area that leaves us a little worried. While both the JLP and PNP manifestos treat the topic of high-quality technical and vocational training, they do it as part of a comprehensive grab bag - neither seeming to recognise it as a primary challenge. When we recently engaged in a research exercise surveying countries that had made the transition to developed status, of the common patterns that emerged, the most significant was indeed a heavy focus on high-skilled training. But neither document reveals a particular sensitivity to this. They don't seem to have a plan to train workers to fit in a future global economy.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the PNP's call for Caribbean standardisation in vocational training, in the form of Caribbean Vocational Qualifications. This organisation was approved by the Council for Human and Social Development in October 2006 and was expected to be in place by mid-2007. Such an organisation should be instrumental to the free movement of skilled labour across the region, because as it stands, an electrician in Jamaica isn't allowed to wire a building in Antigua.

All in all, on the topic of education, the choice between JLP and PNP is not a radical one. Both documents reveal many of the same strengths and weaknesses. They address a similar set of goals seeming to equate overall improvement in education quality to better teacher training, ignoring things like a revamped curriculum. Also, they both gloss over the actual cost of pledges. As our thermometer shows today, both parties will already 'blow the budget' with their education.