Towards educational equity – a matter of resources

Now that school has restarted and the eleven-plus exams and the resulting choices for secondary education are behind us, it is time for us to take a look at a system that has guided us for many decades.

The ideas of Junior Academies and Middle Schools were summarily dismissed by some people because of their vested interests in maintaining a system that was allowed to become elitist and unfair. The buck has to stop at the Ministry of Education and, by extension, the Cabinet.

From as far back as the Screening Test to the present-day 11-Plus exam, very little has changed because the expectations of the population have not. In 2023, the parent/guardian of every child taking the eleven-plus exam wants their child to attend Harrison/Queens College. Why is that? This desire is transmitted to the student who, in the long run, passes down this mindset to their own children. And on it goes…

My understanding is that among high schools there is no difference in the quality of the teaching staff. The teachers are well-qualified and trained. The curriculum is the same. Why then would a parent/guardian living in Fortescue or Connell Town want their child to travel to Crumpton Street or Clermont Road? It makes no sense. Why? The answer is resources. These highly desired schools, whether by intention or not, have been given significantly more resources than the other schools on the island. This obtained for many, many decades turning them into elite institutions to the detriment of all the others. As a result, this became self-fulfilling.

The perception of superiority of these schools is so ingrained in the psyche of Barbadians that it will take generations for this to change. Granted, governments have built new schools and upgraded others but they must go much further in allocating more and more resources to other secondary schools to the point that there is no difference between HC/QC and the others. I would argue that governments have to over-compensate to such an extent that the general public begins the slow and inexorable change of perceiving equity. This is a monumental but not impossible task. Governments must also communicate this change as well with some degree of sincerity.

Speaking as someone with experiential knowledge of both well-resourced/poorly-resourced institutions, the disparity between critical areas such as libraries, science laboratories, music programmes and the like was a shocking revelation to an unsophisticated teenager. In the end, it will be to the country’s benefit (and environment) when the family in Fortescue or Connell Town would not think twice in deciding to send their child to a secondary school close to home.

Charles Cooke