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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Beating the odds: The story of Ricardo Marsh</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Career & Education</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY KIMONE THOMPSON Sunday Observer reporter thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, February 25, 2007
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<P class=StoryText align=justify>MORE than 87 per cent of his graduating class at Kingston Technical High School (KTHS) could not read at the required level, but 19-year-old Ricardo Marsh was the exception. Indeed, he was way ahead of the pack, earning one of two Jamaica technical high school scholarships offered by the Ministry of Education in 2006.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=140 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Nineteen-year-old Ricardo Marsh graduated at the top of his class last year and was awarded a Jamaica Technical High School scholarship tenable at the University of Technology (UTech). At the graduation last November, school principal Georgette Palmer announced that 87 per cent of the students were unable to read at the required level. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)</SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>That scholarship, which offers tuition coverage for the duration of Ricardo's five years at the University of Technology (UTech) and an additional $15,000 to cover the costs of books each year, has given him a chance to fulfil his dream of acquiring a tertiary level education and eventually becoming an engineer. It was a chance many of his classmates did not get because they were only semi-literate.<P class=StoryText align=justify>But Ricardo, who lives with his stepmother in the Maxfield Avenue area, says it was through no fault of their own. "I don't think it's the school administration's fault. It's the entire education system's fault because you reach grade seven at a junior high school, and you can't read, and then you move to grade eight, still can't read," he told the Sunday Observer last week.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"You still move to grade nine and then, you move on to another school and you continue progressing up the ladder - and you still can't read. You're not achieving anything, but you're moving up. The school can't do anything because they are going to send more (students who read below their levels), and you can't focus on them when you're getting 100, 200 more (new students) every year," he added.<P class=StoryText align=justify>In assessing the situation that was faced by many of his friends, the young man reiterated a criticism that has long been levelled against the education system in Jamaica. "Some of them (students) would really want to learn, but the teachers didn't have time to spend on them," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Consequently, the students, faced with the prospect of failure, would stop attending classes. This, Ricardo said then allowed teachers to focus on the 'brighter' students. Fortunately for Ricardo, he was able to escape that dilemma because he was literate, and although he failed the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) when he sat it 1993 and ended up in a technical school, it wasn't for a lack of intellectual ability.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"I failed GSAT, but it was an accident because I had just come from country and my father really didn't have any money so I didn't have any books," he recalled.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He wanted to go to Wolmer's or to Kingston College, but when he got to KTHS he decided to make the best of the experience. He had harboured dreams of being a doctor, but once he started at the technical school, he knew he was going to be an engineer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"From starting KTHS I wanted to do engineering. It's like I choose it and the school
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