Chevannes raps quality of education system
NOTED sociologist and Dean at the University of the West Indies, Professor Barry Chevannes has strongly criticised the quality of education being offered in Jamaica and argued that the educational system had failed in some respects to produce citizens with good morals and life-coping skills.
“We have delivered quantity but not quality. There are more persons at our tertiary institutions but the quality of our graduates leaves much to be desired,” said Chevannes, who was the keynote speaker at Wednesday’s opening ceremony of the HEART Trust’s two-day seminar on Lifelong Learning, at the Jamaica Conference Centre.
“We have succeeded in the instrumental use of education but lost the value of education as an end in itself. That is why I feel that the quantity of education is good but we have to give serious thought to quality,” Chevannes told the more than 400 participants at the conference which included students, teachers, policy makers and persons in the business industry.
“It is not only in transmitting skills, which has also declined, but the quality of the graduates you are putting out as citizens. When a 14 year-old is committing rape and murder then something is wrong. It means that the community, the education system and the family have failed,” said Chevannes, who has done considerable research in the area of social sciences.
According to Chevannes, the methodology used to teach in Jamaican society needed to be examined to allow students a greater role in the learning process.
“… we have to address the methodology whereby we teach — by rote. We have to refashion our way of teaching to allow students a sense of questioning but with respect,” he said. “Education is no good if it turns out citizens who don’t know how to live as humans and those who of themselves are anti-human. The purpose of education is to shape us into human beings.”
He argued that the educational process was critical in socialisation and the transmission of morals, values and life skills. With the failure in the home and educational system to fulfill this role Chevannes said, he was concerned about the impact that this was having on society.
“I am concerned about the deterioration in our values. We also have to worry about how our kids are being socialised. Twenty five per cent of murders are done by kids who have not yet finished high school.
“There are even 13 year olds committing murder. With murders so commonplace we don’t get shocked anymore. This shows that we are regressing and losing some of our humanity,” he said.
Chevannes also made a plea to the students to commit more to learning values during their educational process.
“Students acquire the values of compassion, our society is too hard, too tough. It needs compassion,” he added.
His address came shortly after that of minister of state in the Ministry of Education, Dr Donald Rhodd, who gave an update of what the government was doing to promote life long education.
Some of the plans he highlighted were:
* the government’s aim to have 90 per cent average daily attendance at the primary level by 2005;
* to have 80 per cent of all Grade 6 students demonstrate full literacy by year-end;
* a five per cent annual improvement in the number of students passing English and Mathematics at the Caribbean Examination Certificate level; and
* to have a 30 per cent enrollment level in tertiary education.