January 15, 2014

Politicians and others seem to believe that one can stop a train running down hill by slamming on the brakes, vainly trying to abruptly change the direction of the juggernaut, or by throwing obstacles in front of it.

One would have thought that by now the vain sacrifice of at least three Education Ministers, several Education Commissioners, Permanent Secretaries and other petty officials would have opened the eyes of the “Educators/Politicians” to conclude that the methods they were proposing were unsustainable or just plain unworkable.

It is nigh impossible to abruptly change the direction of a large moving object by attempting to violently change its direction. In the case of the train, it will run over those who are trying to make the changes (here one could name all the Ministers/Commissioners/Education Officers run over) or it will simply careen off the track in a great train wreck.

Many people seem to believe that the schools are factories producing consumable goods; and like a factory, when the product appears to be out dated, they close the factory and retool. Unfortunately, one cannot close a school system down but one may close a Department of Education down and reorganise that division.

I therefore humbly suggest that we let the schools lumber along free from the direction of the Ministry while we retool the department.

I believe that the schools will not suffer any adverse effects from a lack of direction from our illustrious educators, and may even suffer a slight improvement.

Clevelyn Crichlow