THE ARTICLE CAPTIONED Jones Ridicules Hinkson’s Charges in last Monday’s edition of your newspaper purports to report on the aspect of the previous week’s Estimates Debate in the House of Assembly.
During it, the issue of what percentage of students in Barbados obtain four or more passes in their first sitting of Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams was addressed.
The article, while referring to my quote of that percentage as being 6.4 per cent, did not state that I based my contention on a study conducted by the very credible Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), of which Barbados has been a paying member since 1967.
The fact is that this international organisation undertook research on our country’s educational system between the years 1999 and 2012, years which spanned regimes of both of the two political parties. The IDB’s ultimate goal is to assist Barbados in restoring sustainable growth in our economy.
Its senior education specialist, Dr Marianna Alfonso, who holds a doctorate in education economics, stated at an international conference on higher education held last October at the Barbados Hilton, that only 6.1 per cent of students in our country obtain four or more passes at their first sitting of CSEC exams. This is not an issue which any right-thinking education minister should outrightly dismiss as being “extremely inaccurate”.
Dr Alfonso went on to reveal that 50 per cent of our students obtain more than four CSEC passes but only after sitting these exams on more than one occasion. This is the figure on which basis Minister Jones sought to refute what I had earlier contended during the debate.
The reality is that Barbados’ education spend at approximately six per cent of our gross domestic product, is above the average of that of the world’s most developed countries. Those of us at the level of the political directorate have a duty to ensure that our educational system does not only cater to our society’s brightest young people, but also caters especially to those of our youth who may not be as gifted academically.
We must ensure that our taxpayers’ spend in this highly significant sector offers the majority of our children the opportunity to develop their critical thinking and innovative skills, their ability to teamwork and solve problems as well as enhance their self-esteem and leadership qualities.
Our educational policymakers must ensure that a higher percentage of our young citizens are equipped to realise their full potential to be productive citizens and to improve their quality of life after they leave our secondary schools. We have to make sure that they have skills to successfully enter the world of work when it is time for them to do so.
Minister Jones ought to carefully analyse the detailed data and statistics which the IDB, with funds paid for by the Barbadian taxpayers, has presented and not see it as any “narrow partisan political foolishness”.
Our policymakers need to wake up to the reality that our educational system is in need of reform if we are to truly transform it at this critical stage of our nationhood to assist in the sustainable development of our people.
If we fail to do so, we will continue to slide as we have done in the last few years, having fallen from sixth globally as to the quality of our educational system in 2013-14, to 22nd in 2016-17, according to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report.
– EDMUND G. HINKSON, MP
