#SpeakingOut – Our Primary School crisis

Educator and columnist Ralph Jemmott has once again identified major issues with our education system. And right up front in last week’s column, he made the point that underperformance at the primary level of the school system is our fundamental problem. The problem is continually ignored by all governments, inexplicably.

For years it was reported that around 40 per cent of children failed the 11-plus in both the English and
Maths papers. These embarrassing facts are now suppressed, but it was leaked last month into the press that more
than 30 per cent failed English. The public, and especially parents and teachers, need to know the facts. Why are they suppressed?

It should be obvious to a blind man sitting backwards on a trotting horse that these children will be terribly handicapped in secondary school, whether or not the 11-plus is abandoned for some unidentified, hastily imagined alternative. If functionally illiterate in English and innumerate in Maths and unable to perform at secondary level, these kids, neglected at primary school, cannot be expected to succeed at secondary level. 

The causes are many – from poor homes with no culture of reading, or struggling single parents, to possible dyslexia, and unsatisfactory classroom arrangements with three classes competing noisily in one space. I commented on this archaic phenomenon in a letter a few weeks ago, without any response. A conscientious Ministry of Education would have called and asked me which school I had visited, so the inaction suggests that it’s common across the island.

“Transformation of our education system” has been a political phrase for a long time. The only urgent transformation – the top priority – should be at the primary level. Wake up, Ministry of Education, and do not perpetuate the disservice to 40 per cent of our children while playing around with building castles in the air.

Professor Emeritus Sir Henry Fraser