Economist says BSSEE does more damage than good

Well-known economic consultant Jeremy Stephen has said that the Common Entrance Examination has done a lot of damage to the children of Barbados.

Stephen, one of three panelists in a discussion forum organised by the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) focusing on the economy and labour on Monday evening, was seeking to draw a parallel between being skilled for the digital economy as self-made entrepreneurs and young people who are certificated for the job market through the conventional education system.

“I am one that believes, and some of you might not want to hear [this], that the Common Entrance has done more damage than good. I am one that vehemently, as political as I am not, will support the day that is disabused,” he declared.

“The fact is, it sections off children at too early an age in areas that might not be best applied for them,” Stephen said.

Using his personal experience through school as a reference, the economist claimed that “I suck at being an economist,” and that he is better at piecing together things.

“I am actually better with my hands, than I am with my brain. I got a three (Grade) in Maths. CXC is not the proudest thing I have ever had; but yet, put Maths in front of me now, I can get it done because I had to relearn later on for a study that fits me. It had to be practical,” the specialist in web and app development pointed out.

“Government has looked toward specialisation at the secondary level, I don’t believe specialisation should appear that early. Everybody should get the same tools as available. Or if you want to go the route of specialisation, no matter your intellect, you go where your best applies, at age 13, whatever,” said Stephen, who is also a cryptocurrency consultant.

His view is that if this is done, the Ministry of Education is better able to allocate resources towards encouraging children to take the course that’s necessary to fit into the various types of economies that would boost the country’s efforts at repurposing Barbados.

“I don’t think you should wait until university. The amount of coding camps that six-year-olds are doing in the USA…I need to give a shout out to Professor Ward because he brought the same attitude here now with his summer camps, robotic camps. I think more of that needs to be done. But I think it is imperative that older generations stop telling children what career options are likely for them to work,” suggested the former Commonwealth Scholar whose consulting experience has covered private equity in Barbados, the Caribbean and internationally.

Another panelist, former Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle, also addressed the issue of a fit-for-purpose educational system that turns out individuals who are prepped for a swiftly changing and innovative labour market.

Caddle, who is also an economist, made the point that the local educational system has failed to teach the nation’s children how to apply the knowledge they received in school.

“People who remember things easily…our educational system is structured more for remembering things and less for applying the knowledge. The application of knowledge is a huge breach that we have to come to terms with, because I watched students in front of me learn information; You give them a problem to solve that is based on that information and they cannot do it. Not because there is anything wrong with their brains, but because we have not taught them how to do that,” declared the MP for St Michael South Central.

“So we really have to start to restructure what we do with the formal school system. We also have to look at informal education, which is this business of culture. Culture is not just Crop Over. Culture is the way a society shares and enquires informal education; the things that you learn running about on the hard court and the pasture, in community centres. We need to be able to also have a solution for the way that education is shared,” she added.
(EJ)