Dr. Chandler laments loss of focus on education reform

An economist is warning that reforming the education system must be more than about what secondary schools children attend and must focus on fixing current shortcomings if Barbados is to be ready for “the stark times ahead”.

Dr William Chandler, who issued the caution on Tuesday, is also concerned that public discussion about education reform has been used as an opportunity for some to ridicule academics and gifted students.

Delivering a brief address at the Harrison College Speech Day and Prize Giving at the school, he said that although there have been several discussions over the years on the need to revamp the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination (BSSEE), commonly referred to as the Common Entrance or 11-plus exam, they have lost focus.

“Similarly, we have many children leaving secondary school without actually having taken in the education they should have for the five-year period. We then hear people say they should do something with their hands, as though hands are not connected to minds. It is folly,” he asserted.

The economist added: “When I think about the future, I see stark times ahead which will need mighty minds, more so than mighty bodies, to get through the mire of pain that is likely to come. Yet we in Barbados are stuck in conversations about which school is better than which instead of questioning and answering the challenge of making sure that every school in Barbados rises to perfection to fall to excellence.”

In this regard, the Harrison College old scholar urged Barbadians to desist from framing certain schools as better than others, as he stressed that perseverance and dedication are the true catalysts for excellence.

“Greatness comes from perseverance, it does not come from resting on your laurels. As two of my grandfathers used to say, you can be bright but not shining. Somehow people think that Harrison College does well because the children here are just naturally better than the children at other schools…. That is rubbish. In making such erroneous statements, they discount the care, love, and attention their parents, teachers, other school staff, old scholars, family and wider community give them.

“Even more dangerous, such remarks unfairly and unjustly less count the other children in Barbados who make the majority of our future population,” he said.

At the same time, Dr Chandler, who was recently appointed to the Parliamentary Reform Commission, said some Barbadians have been downplaying the value of the achievements of academic high fliers.

He lamented that praising excellence, “particularly if it is excellence of Harrison College, is near blasphemous”.

“Things are made worse by the so-called intellectuals hiding in the shadows instead of engaging society. What we are left with is a broken society, where success is ridiculed and intelligence undervalued. The result of course is that the best of us leave, and we are poorer for it,” Dr Chandler lamented. (SB)