WE APPLAUD Mrs. Maxine Henry-Wilson's undertaking that the main emphasis of her tenure as Minister of Education will be on overall quality rather than quantity, starting with the early childhood link in the education chain. We hope that what she sees as being necessary for early childhood education is not too narrowly focused on children with physical and mental disabilities.
Although it is vital that such disadvantaged children get the special attention they deserve, this should not distract from the thousands of children in infant and basic schools who are healthy and mentally alert but who, because of the way the early childhood system is organised, are not being exposed to teachers who are specially trained in how to stimulate the potential of their charges. In many cases untrained teachers are too authoritarian to allow for the flow of love and emotional support which all children need in their formative years and which, with the demise of the nuclear family, is lacking in the home environment, especially in inner-city communities and the deep rural areas.
For too long the education of young children has been left to privately run community basic schools which cater to 90% of the early childhood student population, approximately 136,000 youngsters. These schools are supposed to be registered but are not effectively regulated. Physical facilities are often below acceptable standards, there is no insurance, no common curriculum and, most serious of all, the teaching staff in most schools is untrained and underpaid.
We note that basic school teachers recently went on strike because the pay they receive by way of government subvention is $12,000 per month, not the $15,000 which was promised. This level of pay is hardly more than for domestic helpers.
Mrs. Maxine Henry-Wilson obviously faces an uphill challenge and as ambitious as her plans are for education, she is likely to get off to a rocky start with the new school year next month. Since the beginning of the school term is a date fixed in the education calendar, we are surprised that a lack of elementary forward planning results in a state of near chaos at the start of every school year, compounded this September by the high cost of fees and increases in the price of school uniforms and books.
Mr. Seaga is predicting that overall costs will be 27% above last year and may have reached a level where parents are unable to afford to send all their children to school. We hope he is wrong even as we understand the obligation he feels as Leader of the Opposition to draw the impending crisis to public attention.
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