Put God above Grades! Urgent call for church schools to return to righteous path

By: Nadine Wilson-Harris 

President of the Jamaica Independent Schools Association (JISA), Pastor Wesley Boynes has given some church operated schools a failing grade for not doing enough to reinforce Godly values in their students  or maintaining the original vision of their institution.

Boynes said the focus has been on excelling academically. This, he believes, has resulted in well-educated students with no righteous character in some instances.

“I am concerned because I find that a lot of our church schools, the big focus now is on getting the children to pass PEP [Primary Exit Profile] or CSEC [Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC] examination or whatever, while the spiritual platforms of the church bodies which started them in the first place is no longer the focus,” he said.

“Yes, I appreciate the academic objectives; I appreciate the fact that when a child comes to school, they pass their exams, but the world is not suffering from a lack of educated people; the reason the world is in a mess is because you have educated people who have no character, no integrity,” he told the Freedom Come Rain newspaper.

Many of the top performing high schools and preparatory schools in Jamaica were started by a church and remain affiliated with that church. Some private institutions were also started by faith-based groups and Christians, with the hope that their values and ethos would be passed on to the children who attend these places of learning.

“If the students won scholarships and passed their exams, but yet they have not discovered the God of the church or the value system of the church, and the principles of the church, then as far as I am concerned, that church school have failed the original vision of why it was established,” he said.

Boynes, who is now serving his third and final stint as president of JISA, said he has expressed his concerns to some school administrators. These concerns have increased as children become more exposed to value systems that are different from the ones the church should be endorsing and promoting. He noted, too, that the country is experiencing a moral crisis.

“Our brother Isaiah spoke about a time when deep darkness would cover the earth. People would just become more and more wicked, but in spite of that, God’s people are expected to shine and function differently. I believe that we are living in that time. The evil that is on the earth is getting more and more,” noted Boynes, who is the pastor of the Philadelphia Life Centre in Ochio Rios, St Ann. He is also the chairman of the Northgate High School in St. Ann and the  El Instituto de Mandevilla in Manchester.

“At the end of the day, these are our children, and darkness is after our children to introduce a whole new set of values, a whole new concept of family, a whole new concept of man,” he said.

There are currently about 657 fully registered independent schools in Jamaica, but in addition to this, there are those schools that have applied for registration, those that have received provisional registration, and those that are unregistered. Combined, this amounts to an estimated 1500 privately run institutions in the country.

Although the Ministry of Education regulates these institutions, Boynes believes independent schools are in a better position than public institutions to fine-tune and structure their programmes in keeping with a certain standard. He implored more owners of private schools to exercise this freedom.

Referring to the church as the spiritual covering for the schools they established, Boynes encourages these churches to ensure that good character in students are promoted as much as academics on special occasions such as prize-giving services. This means highlighting students for good deeds.

“A lot of schools boast that, this pilot came from our school and this doctor came from our school, but what about the good husbands and the good fathers? Can we boast about those guys being from our school? The faithful husband who is not cheating on his wife, that’s a graduate from our school,” he said.

The pastor finds that some churches and church leaders have also become disconnected from their schools, when in reality, these institutions present an opportunity for them to provide spiritual guidance to students and by extension, parents. He encourages the Christians at these churches to provide mentorship and to support fundraising endeavours at the schools, so that the administrators do not feel the need to seek funding from other groups with conflicting value systems.

“In a new way, churches have to rally their members around their education institutions; otherwise, the darkness will overtake our schools when they have to go depend on some funding agency from Europe to contribute to the school. Once that agency brings their resources, you have to buy into the value which, in most instances, is very alien to traditional Jamaican values or what we know are Christian values,” said Boynes.