Weekly Message from Lindsay Grant (Political Leader People’s Action Movement)
BASSETERRE St.Kitts, September 27th, 2011 -- With my eldest child now in his final year of high school I am much more keenly aware of the impact of our education system on his future and that of our children generally. With the festivities surrounding Independence Day and National Heroes Day now behind us the school year really begins and for fifth form students the intensity is tremendous; too much so for many young people.
For children like my son who have the resources of two parents supporting them at every step the process will not be too difficult to navigate but for the 24% mired below the poverty rate and those just barely above a difficult time can easily become a real disaster. This is a likely cause of the very high drop-out rate.
The issues surrounding the academic content of the CXC program are discussed constantly and I hesitate to caution against an overly academic syllabus because our world is increasingly complex and our children will have to compete globally and must be best prepared.
However, if we see that a significant proportion of our children are not handling the program well then we should be focussed on ensuring that while our system is on par with international best practice the vast majority of our children achieve a minimum standard of competence for the 21st century.
The issue of violence in schools is well known and I commend programs developed to address it such as the project PURPLE, but I have become aware of another issue that is of equal concern and which seems to have fallen off the radar. There is a program for pregnant and mothering teenagers called Project Viola that is in danger of losing its international donor funding because important goals are not being met.
In the first place the rate of teenage pregnancy has increased instead of decreased and the funding agency has expressed grave concern that after several years of funding there is little by way of prosecution of those responsible.
Several secondary schools currently have pregnancies in the double digits and this is clearly unacceptable. Something in our system is obviously not working for these girls and since most children will live at the social and economic status of their mothers we are setting up ourselves for dealing with another troubled generation.
These issues demand a concerted national effort to successfully address them so all stakeholders must be invited to participate in the effort. Are we up to this task?
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