IS THE EDUCATION SYSTEM SERVING THE RIGHT PURPOSE?

The Jamaican government along with their ardent supporters and spin doctors will boast about the strides made in education since slavery was abolished. Fortunately this is good, however if we are to keep pace with the rest of the world in terms of development we have a far way to go.
The “WHOLE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM” needs to be revamped and overhauled if we are to provide world class education for our people.

Follow up:

In this day of globalization when we are in the information age, we have made significant strides in terms of communication, such as the opening of superhighways, telephone services including cellular technology.
However we lack the necessary tools, equipment and expertise which are necessary for us to go forward at the early childhood level, primary, secondary and I believe tertiary level to move on.
There needs to be adequate and relevant training provided by the government so that early childhood education can be on tract, because research has shown that children brain are very involved at this stage in their development and their minds should be stimulated by competent persons. Adequate and appropriate resources “MUST” be put at this level to ensue that our future leaders of this country will be secured with requisite skills necessary to run the country. It is also necessary for the same resources to be expended to the primary level system.
There is a saying that “every child can learn and every child must learn”
Resources meaning well trained and equipped teachers who will be able to cater to the different learning styles of children coupled to scientific methods of teaching such as using available visual aids and relevant technology if our country is to see any great economical strides in the near future.
we have number of person graduating with doctorate which are not relevant to our needs because they have proven incompetence at every level that they were shoved into and some of them are still in these positions today after proven incapable of handling complexities.
One of the tertiary level institutions that I believe is relevant to the training needs of today’s Jamaica is the VDTI, the others are merely preaching theoretical rhetoric which has no significant bearing on today’s Jamaica.
Research should be a priority of these major institutions and must be done on a number of topics by our two premier government run universities in the field of science and technology and also in the social sciences.
We are in a situation now with fuel crisis and we have not made an impact in terms of researching alternative sources of energy which is quite easy and will require funding which can be found if we are serious about the whole matter.
Solar energy was highly touted some years ago when fuel prices went up. After fuel prices stabilized they forget it. We have abundance of solar energy which could provide energy for all government run institutions. We can provide enough biogas or methane gas to run electricity and from other cogeneration methods which are not difficult if we decide to look at available data and do the necessary research which can be conducted by CASE, UTECH, UWI and NCU.
I just want to see our country emulate places like Cuba, China, Japan, India and other Asian countries in education and match the relevance to our culture.
by Courtney kenlock