Churches were once the driving force behind the shaping of the nation’s education system, building and supporting schools and transforming them into learning powerhouses that properly prepared children to be decent citizens, right-minded, and ready to make useful contributions to a developing society.
History would have recorded that schools that were established by the Church of England and the Roman Catholics mainly enrolled the children of former colonists, landowners, and the clergy. But so many other institutions, established by other denominations, were tasked with educating the descendants of enslaved people who demonstrated early potential to advance academically after Emancipation.
Church schools have continued to outperform nearly all other institutions of learning since Independence and, for the most part, have managed to maintain some level of discipline among the student population. Parents clamour to enrol their children in these top-performing places of learning, plotting their steps from the point of pregnancy to PEP.
It must have been clear to every government since colonial days that the nation needed more schools, and schools needed church involvement and support. But the head-butting political class that took the reins of power post-Independence would not allow for the righteous influence of the Church in schools and communities to continue unrestricted. Politics sought to impose its own version of oppression on the newly freed people, replacing the chains and whips with laws and regulations over life and learning.
The diminished role of the Church in education removed righteousness from its lofty place in the hallowed halls, reducing its effectiveness and compromising the ultimate success of the institutions.
Government’s hand in education curtailed corporate devotions in schools, reformed Bible Knowledge to Religious Education and removed large chunks of the moral fibre that kept discipline in check. The decline in academic standard and performance was well underway from early in the game.
When God and righteousness are removed from any school system, the door swings wide open for the enemy to step in and implement his plans for its destruction and the annihilation of generations.
For decades, governments, pushed and pulled by experts and exigencies, manipulated the system to arrive at a place where it can only deliver an uneducated mass that can be mobilised on a whim by political parties with boxed lunches and trump change.
Very little has been invested in critical teaching resources in public schools; no real effort has been made to repair or refurbish ramshackled structures or pay teachers decent wages. International agencies have gifted the nation with funds to construct schools; in at least one instance, the schools were never built, although the funds were delivered to government coffers. In cases where buildings were constructed, they were poorly maintained.
Year in, year out, thousands of students walk across prettily decorated platforms in overly expensive graduation ceremonies at the end of the school year, without passes in the basic CSEC subjects, no useful training in any vocation, and totally unprepared for the world of work.
Too many of the last two generations of Jamaicans have been whisked through the resource-starved school system with zero evidence of an education, versed in indiscipline and crudeness, and with absolutely no clear path to advancement. Last year alone, 5,261 students, or 16.2 percent of those who sat CSEC subjects, failed to achieve a passing grade, according to data prepared by the Programme, Monitoring, and Evaluation Unit of the education ministry. Quite a few students who were promoted through the system to arrive at fifth form were refused exam entry as they were not qualified to sit even one subject.
The Jamaican education sector had been terminally ill for a long time, suffering from a serious deficit of experienced teachers, especially in math and science. Trainee teachers avoid these subjects, and colleges have not been producing enough of these specialists to fill available vacancies.
Checks with several schools across the island revealed the ongoing struggle to find mathematics teachers. Of the few who have been trained, many have taken up lucrative job offers overseas.
For years, schools have struggled to teach the government-approved curriculum without identifying a teacher of math, biology, physics, or chemistry. Guidance counsellors and others have had to take up the teaching of these subjects in many instances.
The results from the most recent sitting of the CSEC examinations show further and more dramatic decline in the core subjects of English and mathematics, even among students who did exceptionally well overall.
The drop in passes comes after this current cohort of candidates survived two whole years without direct learning, no contact with Sunday, Sabbath school, or proper devotions with their peers. Online classes for two COVID years left many distracted, connected only to their own devices. The mass migration of teachers from the classrooms picked up speed in recent years. It is being whispered that over 50 teachers, many in the prime of their lives and careers, also died suddenly after taking the COVID jab, but this is yet to be confirmed.
Many students were ringside witnesses to frequent squabbles and fights on school compounds or bus stops after online learning took its recess and classrooms were reopened to face-to-face learning. Violent incidents involving teachers and parents made their way to viral social media posts. Gang-styled standoffs on school compounds were indicative of the presence and deadly influence of thuggery among the population of pupils.
One of the most powerful weapons against the education system was launched by the pompous political class itself, last year. From their high seats in Gordon House, politicians effectively taught students, teachers, parents, and janitors that the education system was worth peanuts when they awarded themselves a massive pay hike and paid the teachers monkey money to desk-pounding applause.
This move essentially riveted into the heads of all and sundry, especially our children, that education occupies the lowest rungs of the nation’s social ladder and it is best not to climb it.
For years, just about half of the number of students who graduate each year exit the secondary level of their education, only qualified for menial jobs, ill-prepared for life and the responsibilities of adulthood. In short order, many join the ranks of parenthood themselves, continuing a cycle that places untold pressure on the sagging social safety net. The same politicians rush to expand the PATH programme, celebrating the increased number of beneficiaries as more uneducated Jamaicans fall beneath the burdensome poverty line.
If those who are tasked to manage the education system do not possess the wisdom to work out the equation that where God does not preside, success does not reside, they should resign and find useful work for their hands elsewhere.
While the government clearly has no formula to rescue the failing education system, the Church always knew and still knows that education, like wisdom, begins with God. You cannot remove God from schools and expect successful outcomes. Wisdom preserves the life of him who has it, and it all begins with the fear of God. This government and its God-forsaken education ministry have no such fear. Should we continue to trust them with our children?
