#BTColumn – Missing links in education in the Caribbean

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

A leading Caribbean academic recently revealed that the English-speaking Caribbean has the lowest tertiary educational enrolment of young people in the hemisphere. This revelation was made by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles in his address to the second annual Caribbean Examination Council Ministerial Summit held in Grenada. Beckles used the word tragic to describe the low enrolment of young people in the tertiary educational institutions in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Governments across the region are to be congratulated for their effort to subsidize the cost of tertiary education for the young people of the region.  Not only should governments be congratulated but they should also be encouraged to do even more to improve the uptake of young people in the colleges and universities in the region. At this late stage of our developmental journey, every island in the Caribbean should have a Community College where students could pursue at least an Associate Degree.

In the age of distant learning there is no reason why the University of the West Indies should not be delivering its educational content to students in every island in the Caribbean.  Extension and online campuses should be equipped to deliver Associate Degrees at a minimum. The goal however should be to complete the full journey and deliver the first degree package to students throughout the region.

The days of tertiary education being considered as an elite attainment are dead and gone. Professor Beckles’ goal of having a university graduate in every household in Barbados needs to be expanded to the rest of the Caribbean. The struggle for reparations is a long uphill battle but at least the governments of the region can show their commitment to the people of the region by investing in human resource development.

Now that Barbados and other Caribbean jurisdictions are engaged in some much needed introspection about the overall educational product being offered to young people in the region, a spotlight needs to be turned on the content that is being served to our regional student bodies. Offering for consumption a curriculum that is suited to bygone age simply will not do.

Our educational institutions at all levels should be singularly focused on preparing students to function in the information age.  Artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, renewable energy, cyber security, big data, and agro technology are some of the exciting new knowledge fields that need to be intricately interwoven into the educational curriculum at all levels.

As the world’s newest republic it is only right that Barbados should be engaging in some serious reflection about where we have come from and where we want to go in the future. The same is true for the rest of the Caribbean irrespective of the attainment of republic status or not. Knowing where we have come from is another serious deficiency in our educational product that needs to be remedied like yesterday. Beginning our history with Columbus and his accidental collision with the Caribbean is a nonstarter going forward into the future.

There is much wisdom in the saying that a people without knowledge of their history are like trees without roots. In addition to the proposed air and sea bridges between the Caribbean and Africa, bridges across time also need to be constructed so that people of African ancestry in the Caribbean can become psychologically and spiritually reconnected to the land of our ancestors. And while we are at it we could quietly introduce Swahili or some other widely spoken African language into our school curriculum.

Lastly, our efforts to raise the parity of our girls in Caribbean societies are succeeding spectacularly.  As a father of one child who happens to be female I cannot but applaud this trend and support even greater opportunities for girls at every level in our educational system.  As a man however I must also raise some concerns about the underperformance and underrepresentation of boys especially at the tertiary level of our educational infrastructure. Our girls must advance but our boys must not be left behind.

I suspect that some tweaks in the curriculum to introduce more technical hands-on subject matter would be favourable for the testosterone rich gender.  Booker T Washington, one of our great ancestors, had some excellent ideas about the value of vocational education for students of African ancestry. Carter G. Woodson’s Miseducation of the American Negro should also be required reading for anyone involved in the educational process throughout the Caribbean.  

The Caribbean is at a crossroad and the decisions we take especially in the arena of education will determine our developmental trajectory in the future. Governments across the region may have to make some hard decisions and cut funding to pet projects in pursuit of the creation of a world class educational product that is both cutting edge and relevant to the Caribbean reality. I believe that the Caribbean academic community is up to the task.  Any inability on their part would just be added proof that our educational product is woefully antiquated and needs to be updated.  

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center.