Mrs Maxine Henry-Wilson, the former education minister who now shadows the portfolio for the Opposition, says there is need for a serious national debate on the financing of education. We agree with her - and that the matter is urgent.

There is already a framework for such a discourse. There is the need to finance the proposed transformation of the country's education system and the plan announced last week by the incumbent minister, Andrew Holness, for the establishment of an education trust through which he plans to raise the cash.

But Mr Holness' proposal for this endowment remains, up to now, largely naked. Indeed, he has asked the World Bank, which has some experience in the area, for help in putting substance to it.

Practical contribution

Indeed, we believe that in an environment where resources are notoriously short and the financing of public institutions often the subject of the balancing skills of finance ministers, a specific endowment may be a practical contribution for the funding of education. Variations of the concept have in the past been promoted by one former prime minister, Edward Seaga. Moreover, the trust fund arrangement appears to be emerging as a successful mechanism for providing sound financing for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) without the need for the court to be supplicant before fickle regional governments.

While the elected government must lead, which includes advancing policies it believes are in the best interest of the country, education demands special attention. It is an issue around which it makes sense to have broad consensus.

Education, after all, is a critical part of the foundation upon which Jamaica can expect to build a successful, safe and functional society. But it is an area in which we have not done particularly well over a relatively short period of time. We feel that many of the problems in the Jamaican society can be traced to this failing:

Two-thirds of our children are not ready to enter primary school;

Over 40 per cent of grade-four students don't master the literacy/numeracy requirements;

A third of all students leave primary school illiterate;

at grade six, the mean average test score in the national exam hovers not much over 50 per cent;

At the end of high school, no more than a quarter of the students have the requisite qualifications to matriculate to tertiary institutions or to get meaningful jobs;

No more than 40 per cent of Jamaican students pass maths at CXC and a similar percentage fail at English.

Funds needed

The bottom line is that there is a lot of work to do to fix education, and it will require a substantial amount of cash. The task force established by the former government reported nearly four years ago that it would require a net increase of $20 billion a year on the then education budget to fund the proposed transformation to ensure reasonable educational outcomes. We suspect inflation has put a spiral on those numbers. It will therefore require a significant commitment to go forward, especially, if, as we suspect, Mr Holness' trust fund will not deliver all that's required.

Former finance minister Omar Davies had proposed the bundling of a range of payroll taxes and using some of the cash in areas such as education and health. All ideas must contend.