Editor Amandala,
Sir,
During the early nineteenth century, the endowment from the Mico Trust—originally established in 1670 to redeem Christian slaves in the Barbary States of North Africa— opened a series of schools for blacks and free non-white pupils throughout the Caribbean and three teacher training colleges, Mico in Antigua and Jamaica, and Codrington in Barbados.
After 1870 there was change in public education throughout the Caribbean. This coincided with the establishment of free compulsory public elementary education in Britain and in individual states of the United States. A system of free public primary education and limited secondary education became generally available in every territory, and an organized system of teacher training and examinations was established.
The main trust of public education in the nineteenth and early twentieth century came from the religious community. Competing Protestant denominations—the Church of England, the Baptists, the Moravians, the Wesleyans, the Presbyterians—and the Jesuits operated a vast system of elementary and secondary schools. At the end of the nineteenth century, the churches monopolized elementary education in Jamaica and Barbados, and ran a majority of the primary schools in Belize, Trinidad, Grenada, and Antigua. The first primary school was established in 1816 in Belize. The first high school in Belize was Wesley College, established in 1882.
In the 1900s secondary education was for white, almost white, or for those who could afford it. By the 1960s it was considered a right. By the 1970s government took control of the education system and its purpose was for national development, not just individual advancement.
The most outstanding secondary schools have religious management. It is not that religious denominations manage schools better than governments, as most would assert. It is that they take in students with better academic background. If they took in students with poor academic background and made them the best, then that would support that they can manage schools better than government.
The real changes need to occur at the primary level. Money must be spent so that no child leaves primary school without gaining the required skills. The Ministry of Education spends too much money on unnecessary executive positions. The blame game is counterproductive. Remedial programs need to be put in place from at Grade 3 (Standard 1) up to Grade 8 (Standard 6).
The Belize Junior Achievement Test is administered in Standard 3, costing thousands of dollars; it is not being properly utilized for improvement. Massive investment in technology as teaching aids must be implemented. The Primary School Examination (PSE) needs to be a diagnostic test rather than a placement test.
The entire history of education in the Caribbean and Belize is that education is a tool of social stratification rather than developing all the citizen’s potential. Belize has not learned from history – if you don’t develop the people at the bottom of the social hierarchy, they will become thorns in your side, hence the crime problem. All the aggressive policing won’t change that reality. No baby is born, bad.
Yours truly,
Brian Ellis Plummer