|
|
|
|
Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 A quality education has long been one of the benchmarks of advanced and developed societies. For the Bahamas, the importance of education to our continued development cannot be overstated; in fact it is perhaps one of the most critical investments a government, and a country can make in its people and its future. By all appearances though, the millions spent on school repairs is having little impact on the system as a whole.
Thousands of students across the length and breadth of our archipelago are returning to schools and classrooms where the government has failed to address many of the long standing issues which have plagued our education system for decades. While the world has moved toward specialized and digital learning, students here in the Bahamas continued to be held back by governments operating in the analogue world. That will change under a DNA Government.
The new millennium was ushered in by a dramatic technological revolution. We now live in an increasingly diverse, globalized, and complex, media-saturated society. Emerging technologies and resulting globalization also provide unlimited possibilities for exciting new discoveries as well. These realities have changed the way students are able to receive, process and retain information. Unfortunately our education system has failed to take these changes into account, offering a one size fit all style curriculum for the thousands of individual students that pass through the system.
Efficient and Effective education in a 21st century Bahamas can and should equip students with the skills required to live and thrive in a more globalized environment. Skills such as Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Leading by Influence, Adaptability, Initiative and Entrepreneurialism as well as effective Oral and Written Communication skills are vital to ensuring that Bahamian students can compete with both their regional and international counterparts.
The first step in addressing those areas is an overhaul of the current curriculum. This will require a dramatic departure from the factory-model education of the past. For the past 4 decades, education in the Bahamas has relied heavily on a textbook driven, teacher centered, paper and pencil style of schooling. This style of education has churned out scores of functionally illiterate men and women and branded us a nation of D average learners. Following the release of this year’s BJC and BGCSE results, which again yielded letter grades of E and D+ in Math and English respectively, Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald, told the media that he found the results encouraging.
Sadly, his comments are precisely what’s wrong with education today. We should not be encouraged by D and E grades. Instead they should be seen as impetus to make the necessary changes. Clearly, the use of dated education methodologies as the sole approach to educating a 21st century populous is unacceptable. A DNA government understands that in order to give our students the best possible chance, we must embrace a new way of understanding the concept of knowledge, and create a new definition of the “educated person” to include those students who may not be academically inclined but who can be taught 21st century skills through alternative learning.
Under a DNA Government, Public schools will be transformed from simply buildings where students congregate for hours in a day but rather nerve centers connecting students and teachers to a wealth of knowledge; where teachers become not just dispensers of information but guides to help students turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.
Classes must move from being purely time based, to more results oriented, incorporating more active learning and research elements as opposed to the passive, text book driven style currently employed. Curriculums must become more adaptive and aware of student diversity, focusing less on information which many students will never use, and focus more on developing skills with real world application. Doing so will work to create a generation of highly motivated, creative and critical thinkers who are invested in their own educations.
In light of the many social ills currently facing our beautiful country, The Democratic National Alliance calls on the government to stop paying lip service to the importance of education and actually take the steps needed to fix an obviously broken system and remove all barriers to receiving a quality education in this country. Doing so can have far reaching benefits for our still developing nation. According to research compiled by the Global Partnership for Education, more than 171 million people worldwide could be lifted out of poverty if students in low income countries left school with basic reading skills. Not only does a sound education gives our citizens the critical skills and tools needed to improve their quality of life, it also helps create and sustain economic growth, encourages transparency, good governance stability and fights corruption.
Famed civil rights activist Malcolm X once called education the passport to the future. If Bahamians are to fully avail themselves of the opportunities the future holds, then our country’s leaders must ensure that schools in this country equip them with the necessary travel documents. As Malcolm X said: “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”.
Branville McCartney
DNA Leader
© Copyright 2015 by thebahamasweekly.com
Top of Page
|
|
|
|
