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Challenge to education and 'Yaggarism'
BARBARA GLOUDON
Friday, June 24, 2011
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QOhf5pEm
FROM SCHOLARSHIP to Common Entrance to GSAT - call it what you will, that has been our educational rite of passage for the longest while. In earlier times, it was only by means of "the scholarship" that children of lesser financial means could hope to make it to secondary/high schools. For many, it became a dream unrealised. For one, there were not as many secondary school places then as today. Today, there are many more "name brand" schools, there is more opportunity but not enough to fill all the needs.
Placement and proximity remain particularly challenging. Over the years, there has been re-branding, re-naming, revolutionised systems of administration, teaching and learning. Things have been cut, fitted and retrofitted to blend into policy changes and the determination of every minister of education to leave his or her stamp upon the system. As it was in the beginning, so it is even now. We've gone from chalkboard to computer. We've developed intricate programmes of testing and analysis, but come result time, parental anxiety is as high as it ever was.
Passing is not simply getting through. It is where you go when you make the journey. Entrance to "better" schools is the nearest thing to Heaven for parents, even more than students. Never mind the official justifications for why some pass, why some fail. Rejection is painful for everyone.
We tell the children who have not got into the inner circle, "Every little thing will be all right", knowing full well that it ain't necessarily so. We have even had the extreme tragedy of children who took their lives rather than face the consequences of failure. The balm of counselling is offered, but sometimes it is too little too late. Until the day when the movement of students from one level to another can be effected without it being of inflated national importance, we will continue to wrestle with the politics of schools and student placement.
We haven't got over the tension of newer versus older institutions. Many of our newer schools are holding their own, graduating accomplished students who go on to do well at the tertiary level. They still have a way to go to gain full public acceptance. We will have to leave it to time. Inevitably, the usual controversies will fade until we bring them back out again next year.
But let's get back to the matter of proximity. Some students end up placed at unreasonably long distances from where they live. A few days ago, I learned of students in an inner-city Kingston community who have been placed at Eltham, Spanish Town. That is a mighty long way for young children to travel, and costly at that. We've been led to believe that effort is made to minimise or eliminate such occurrences but with space still a problem, it happens.
There are still students who have to traverse parish borders to get educated many miles away. It is said that when more schools are built, the burden will be eased, but until then the children take a battering in the cause of education. Let's commend them and their parents for their courage.
GRADUATION OR GRADDERATION: I got caught up in an argument the other day. Is graduation (or gradderation as I have heard it frequently pronounced) a right or a privilege? A parent who dared to challenge the cost of the "graduation package" at his child's school recently was given the "privilege" definition. Being interpreted, it amounted to "take it or leave it".
For the longest while there have been concerns over school-leaving exercises. Facilitating students to move with pride to the next level on their educational journey should not end up as a heavy strain on the pockets of parents who can ill afford it. The contradiction is that parents will go to any lengths to give their children their five minutes of glory and that seems to fuel the "gradderation" fire.
Some schools lay it on thick, ending in some people convinced that graduation is a profit-making institution for schools. The reluctance of official sources to regulate the trade has been debated for years. Everyone agrees that "something should be done about it", but the status quo continues undisturbed.
YAGGA'S INSENSITIVITY: It is almost 30 years since Lawrence "Yagga" Rowe showed how lacking he is in sensitivity and ignorance of the world's response to the murderous injustice engineered by the oppressive South African system of the past. At the height of it, Mister Yagga didn't see the point of resistance and embarked on his now infamous rebel cricket tours. It was reprehensible in the past - and its memories are the same now. Mister Yagga took the money and the criticism and disappeared from public view.
And now, 30 years later, here he comes, drifting over from his Miami home to Kingston to suddenly say he's sorry, to polish his image and be rewarded by the Jamaica Cricket Association which has now seen fit to enshrine his name at the world-famous Sabina Park. Backward will always be backward. Thanks be, that there will always be those who understand the intensity of the negative reaction towards both Mr Yagga's past and present actions. Those who see nothing wrong should do some research. Look up APARTHEID and inform yourself.
As to the Cricket Association, they could have got a better apologist. As for that childish Yagga-rism about look how the people despised Paul Bogle then made him a National Hero. Read my lips, dead heroes didn't give their lives for their sacrifice to be equated with backwardness.
gloudonb@yahoo.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QOhQrgrr
BARBARA GLOUDON
Friday, June 24, 2011
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QOhf5pEm
FROM SCHOLARSHIP to Common Entrance to GSAT - call it what you will, that has been our educational rite of passage for the longest while. In earlier times, it was only by means of "the scholarship" that children of lesser financial means could hope to make it to secondary/high schools. For many, it became a dream unrealised. For one, there were not as many secondary school places then as today. Today, there are many more "name brand" schools, there is more opportunity but not enough to fill all the needs.
Placement and proximity remain particularly challenging. Over the years, there has been re-branding, re-naming, revolutionised systems of administration, teaching and learning. Things have been cut, fitted and retrofitted to blend into policy changes and the determination of every minister of education to leave his or her stamp upon the system. As it was in the beginning, so it is even now. We've gone from chalkboard to computer. We've developed intricate programmes of testing and analysis, but come result time, parental anxiety is as high as it ever was.
Passing is not simply getting through. It is where you go when you make the journey. Entrance to "better" schools is the nearest thing to Heaven for parents, even more than students. Never mind the official justifications for why some pass, why some fail. Rejection is painful for everyone.
We tell the children who have not got into the inner circle, "Every little thing will be all right", knowing full well that it ain't necessarily so. We have even had the extreme tragedy of children who took their lives rather than face the consequences of failure. The balm of counselling is offered, but sometimes it is too little too late. Until the day when the movement of students from one level to another can be effected without it being of inflated national importance, we will continue to wrestle with the politics of schools and student placement.
We haven't got over the tension of newer versus older institutions. Many of our newer schools are holding their own, graduating accomplished students who go on to do well at the tertiary level. They still have a way to go to gain full public acceptance. We will have to leave it to time. Inevitably, the usual controversies will fade until we bring them back out again next year.
But let's get back to the matter of proximity. Some students end up placed at unreasonably long distances from where they live. A few days ago, I learned of students in an inner-city Kingston community who have been placed at Eltham, Spanish Town. That is a mighty long way for young children to travel, and costly at that. We've been led to believe that effort is made to minimise or eliminate such occurrences but with space still a problem, it happens.
There are still students who have to traverse parish borders to get educated many miles away. It is said that when more schools are built, the burden will be eased, but until then the children take a battering in the cause of education. Let's commend them and their parents for their courage.
GRADUATION OR GRADDERATION: I got caught up in an argument the other day. Is graduation (or gradderation as I have heard it frequently pronounced) a right or a privilege? A parent who dared to challenge the cost of the "graduation package" at his child's school recently was given the "privilege" definition. Being interpreted, it amounted to "take it or leave it".
For the longest while there have been concerns over school-leaving exercises. Facilitating students to move with pride to the next level on their educational journey should not end up as a heavy strain on the pockets of parents who can ill afford it. The contradiction is that parents will go to any lengths to give their children their five minutes of glory and that seems to fuel the "gradderation" fire.
Some schools lay it on thick, ending in some people convinced that graduation is a profit-making institution for schools. The reluctance of official sources to regulate the trade has been debated for years. Everyone agrees that "something should be done about it", but the status quo continues undisturbed.
YAGGA'S INSENSITIVITY: It is almost 30 years since Lawrence "Yagga" Rowe showed how lacking he is in sensitivity and ignorance of the world's response to the murderous injustice engineered by the oppressive South African system of the past. At the height of it, Mister Yagga didn't see the point of resistance and embarked on his now infamous rebel cricket tours. It was reprehensible in the past - and its memories are the same now. Mister Yagga took the money and the criticism and disappeared from public view.
And now, 30 years later, here he comes, drifting over from his Miami home to Kingston to suddenly say he's sorry, to polish his image and be rewarded by the Jamaica Cricket Association which has now seen fit to enshrine his name at the world-famous Sabina Park. Backward will always be backward. Thanks be, that there will always be those who understand the intensity of the negative reaction towards both Mr Yagga's past and present actions. Those who see nothing wrong should do some research. Look up APARTHEID and inform yourself.
As to the Cricket Association, they could have got a better apologist. As for that childish Yagga-rism about look how the people despised Paul Bogle then made him a National Hero. Read my lips, dead heroes didn't give their lives for their sacrifice to be equated with backwardness.
gloudonb@yahoo.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1QOhQrgrr
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