Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.
by Walter Edey
“The activity of interpreting might be misunderstood as listening for the song beneath the words.” – Ronald Heifetz
A Throne Speech has a purpose always and targets a specific audience (s). Speechwriters choose rhyme and suggestion – reason to vote for the upcoming season.
Interpretation and understanding depend on the point of view of each listener. Listeners expect and look for specific information and applaud. Others note the said and critique or criticize the presentation. Still others pause and look deeper. They explore the unsaid. Such is the ditty beneath the
political glamor.
The recent Throne Speech was no exception.
Its announcement promised a new direction. It lifted up pebbles across the Barbadian landscape. Gravel and sand made them secure.
The boulder called education received only a passing reference. It was dusted but not lifted. It never reached the category of “Hard Choices.” The winds and waters of change still bash the coral stone.
Truth told, education – in the broadest sense – is foundational. It is a fundamental pillar of community, cultural, economic, social, spiritual development.
Wherever education goes, Barbados will go.
Full stop.
Joseph Addison, an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician posits:
“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul. The saint, the philosopher, the hero, the wise and the good, or the great man, very often lay hidden and concealed in a plebian, which a proper education might have discerned and brought to light.”
Without question, a dearth of hidden talent is on the rock, inside the blocks.
Call those gifts monuments of excellence – unshaped clay – awaiting a potter’s hand.
The Throne Speech has passed, almost forgotten, but this letter writer still has a big dream for education in Barbados. Sooner rather than later, a Throne Speech will be different.
It will seek to reduce fiscal space; reposition schools as pillars of the emerging urban communities; give wider meaning and use to the school plant and resources.
It will at least include:
1. Alternative approach and strategies to limited taxation avenues.
2. A government to private secondary schools ratio
of 60 to 40.
3. A shared resource and financial relationship with participating private schools. Government retains policy making responsibility.
4. Repeal of the 1982 Education act.
5. Five regions or districts to empower schools, teachers and students. Forge links with businesses and the community.
6. A commissioner, and a team of human resource, employee relations, and administrative experts – managing each region. Self led schools would be problem solvers.
Schools would be holistically assessed biannually.
7. Upgrade the Samuel Jackman Polytechnic to the level of a Community College Add technology, fishing and agriculture and skills management to its programs.
8. Let schools be satellite schools of the University, Community College and the Polytechnic.
9. Have shared music, science, technology labs, and libraries at the sixth form level.
10. Reorganize halls and playing fields into revenue earning spaces.
11. Divide larger campuses into more than one school.
Wasn’t it the late Nelson Mandela who described education as a weapon that can change the world? And is it wrong to dream for a better Barbados and a new direction?
