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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>From 'kitchen bitch' to computer</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Barbara Gloudon
Friday, September 15, 2006
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</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Barbara Gloudon</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>ADIEU JAMAL! The final nail in the coffin of another Michael Manley brainchild from the seventies has been hammered in. The "kitchen bitch", the little kerosene-fuelled "tinnin lamp" which has been the symbol of generations of Jamaicans seeking the light of literacy, will no longer be the symbol of the search.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Disappearing from our national lexicon too will be the letters JAMAL, representing the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy. We are now advised that from here on out, it will be the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning. An acronym for that one is going to be difficult. All I have been able to come up with up to now is JAFOULL. Somehow I don't think anyone is going to beat down my door to get access to it. I suspect it might just end up at "Lifelong Learning".<P class=StoryText align=justify>In announcing the change, Dr Lascelles Lewis who moves from chairman of JAMAL to a similar posting in the new entity, seeks to assure the public that while the move is being made from the "kitchen bitch" to the computer keyboard, attention will still be paid to literacy. I would hope so, Dr Lewis, really hope so.<P class=StoryText align=justify>While it cannot be denied that we can't remain in the days of the kerosene lamp forever and while we have to step into the new light of a new age which demands more of us than learning the ABC, let us hope that we're not deluding ourselves into believing that the monster of illiteracy has been slain. Every day we are reminded of the numbers of young people allegedly "graduating" from school, barely able to read and write.<P class=StoryText align=justify>They are just one part of the equation. We haven't even found time to consider the status of the grown men and women stumbling around out there in the society, trying to keep afloat with their minimal standard of literacy, marginalised by overpowering technology.<P class=StoryText align=justify>HEART/NTA keeps reminding us that such workers need to be aware that if they can't keep up in this computer age, they'll surely be left behind. Already there is disquiet that Jamaica has to permit the importation of a certain level of workers because, it is said, there are not enough qualified people here.<P class=StoryText align=justify>To hear some people talk, however, it would seem that all we have to do is to get our workers knowing how to use a computer, without sufficiently emphasising the indisputable fact that if you don't know what to put into "the machine" then you can't be guaranteed what is to come out.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It may be somewhat unfair to pre-judge what JAMAL's successor is supposed to do, but there's nothing to lose if we promote a healthy dialogue on the reality of our situation and ask just how will people be motivated for the new vision. There still are too many illiterate people in our society. We need to focus on that, with no less intensity than Michael Manley did when he sold the idea of JAMAL to the nation in 1974.<P class=StoryText align=justify>THE STATISTICIANS divide literacy into two categories - basic and functional. One set has less knowledge than others. Some have developed the capacity to function with the minimal knowledge they have. We're good at that, but no comfort is to be found in statistics for the year 1999, for example. That lists the basic illiteracy rate as 20.1 per cent. The b
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Barbara Gloudon
Friday, September 15, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Barbara Gloudon</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>ADIEU JAMAL! The final nail in the coffin of another Michael Manley brainchild from the seventies has been hammered in. The "kitchen bitch", the little kerosene-fuelled "tinnin lamp" which has been the symbol of generations of Jamaicans seeking the light of literacy, will no longer be the symbol of the search.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Disappearing from our national lexicon too will be the letters JAMAL, representing the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy. We are now advised that from here on out, it will be the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning. An acronym for that one is going to be difficult. All I have been able to come up with up to now is JAFOULL. Somehow I don't think anyone is going to beat down my door to get access to it. I suspect it might just end up at "Lifelong Learning".<P class=StoryText align=justify>In announcing the change, Dr Lascelles Lewis who moves from chairman of JAMAL to a similar posting in the new entity, seeks to assure the public that while the move is being made from the "kitchen bitch" to the computer keyboard, attention will still be paid to literacy. I would hope so, Dr Lewis, really hope so.<P class=StoryText align=justify>While it cannot be denied that we can't remain in the days of the kerosene lamp forever and while we have to step into the new light of a new age which demands more of us than learning the ABC, let us hope that we're not deluding ourselves into believing that the monster of illiteracy has been slain. Every day we are reminded of the numbers of young people allegedly "graduating" from school, barely able to read and write.<P class=StoryText align=justify>They are just one part of the equation. We haven't even found time to consider the status of the grown men and women stumbling around out there in the society, trying to keep afloat with their minimal standard of literacy, marginalised by overpowering technology.<P class=StoryText align=justify>HEART/NTA keeps reminding us that such workers need to be aware that if they can't keep up in this computer age, they'll surely be left behind. Already there is disquiet that Jamaica has to permit the importation of a certain level of workers because, it is said, there are not enough qualified people here.<P class=StoryText align=justify>To hear some people talk, however, it would seem that all we have to do is to get our workers knowing how to use a computer, without sufficiently emphasising the indisputable fact that if you don't know what to put into "the machine" then you can't be guaranteed what is to come out.<P class=StoryText align=justify>It may be somewhat unfair to pre-judge what JAMAL's successor is supposed to do, but there's nothing to lose if we promote a healthy dialogue on the reality of our situation and ask just how will people be motivated for the new vision. There still are too many illiterate people in our society. We need to focus on that, with no less intensity than Michael Manley did when he sold the idea of JAMAL to the nation in 1974.<P class=StoryText align=justify>THE STATISTICIANS divide literacy into two categories - basic and functional. One set has less knowledge than others. Some have developed the capacity to function with the minimal knowledge they have. We're good at that, but no comfort is to be found in statistics for the year 1999, for example. That lists the basic illiteracy rate as 20.1 per cent. The b