Article by: Sheria Brathwaite
Source: Barbados Today
Ministers from across CARICOM were told on Friday that the region’s education system needs to be modernised and must be tailored to suit the Caribbean way of life while meeting the region’s social needs.
As the Third Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Ministerial Summit, opened at the Accra Beach Hotel, the exam body’s Chairman Sir Hilary Beckles said reforming the region’s education system was a nation-building exercise that would help each Caribbean state move further away from longstanding socio-relics of colonialism.
He added that reform was also critical because education administrators, over the years, had become displeased with student outcomes.
The University of the West Indies (UWI) Vice-Chancellor said: “All of our countries across the region are engaged in this process because there is a national and a regional recognition that reform is critical because the outcomes are diminishing, are becoming less satisfactory and, therefore, we have to start all over again . . . . This is what we are about – building out our nations out of a colonial ruble – . . . and we have to move forward.”
The historian added that there was a sense of elitism within the education system that must be carefully reviewed and addressed. These structures, he said, were degrading the social fabric of the region and there was great concern that Caribbean governments were turning a blind eye to it.
“There is some doubt about our obsession with economic growth and not with social growth and we need social growth because we need to live in peace, we need non-violence societies, we need societies where our elders can walk the street, we need societies that are socially sophisticated for good living,” he said.
Sounding a similar note, CXC’s Registrar and Chief Executive Officer Dr Wayne Wesley said education played a critical role in the social structure and it could be used as a tool to combat social ills such as violence.
“Our region’s governments are paying a lot of money in the budget on trying to fix social issues,” he told the ministers. “It is important, then, as we have recognised right across the region, that education has become a central pillar to sustainable economic development. It has become a central pillar to climate change. It has become a central pillar of social transformation. If we want to live in peace, we need to educate our people and facilitate social transformation through education . . . It can’t be that [we] in our way, facilitate the degradation of the individuals within society because they have not achieved the way we want them to achieve. We have to change that viewpoint fundamentally.”
The CXC registrar added that the time had come to do away with talk shops and take action to transform Caribbean societies through education.
“This brings me to an important point about the need to resist isomorphism, where we give the impression that things are happening but nothing fundamentally is being changed. We should move away from lip service and begin to put tangible action in place to rescue our region,” he declared.
Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis Dr Terrance Drew also said what was taught in the classroom needs to be relevant to Caribbean societies and prepare students for the modern work environment.
He reasoned that the current system has been failing students as it marginalised slow learners and those who were not academically astute.
Certain tenets of violence could be traced back to the education system as those who did not attend what is considered a prestigious school were treated differently and ostracised, and in an attempt to feel valued and normal, they would join gangs and engage in criminal activity, he said.
Drew said that structures must be in place to facilitate all the learning needs of students and not pigeonhole them into a one-size-fits-all education system.
The theme of the summit this year is Reimaging Educational Reform Towards Transformative Agility.