Pandemic exposed ‘deep flaws’ in education

Women and child rights campaigner Dr Marsha Hinds Myrie has issued a stark warning that the recent surge in youth crime in Barbados is not merely a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic but rather a symptom of long-neglected issues within the education system and broader societal structures.

Dr Hinds Myrie was responding to comments by Cheryl Willoughby, director of the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit (CJRPU), regarding recent crime statistics showing a troubling rise in youth crime linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said that while the pandemic may have contributed to the rise in delinquency among young people engaging in criminal activity, it has also highlighted long-standing deficiencies in Barbados’ education system that have yet to be adequately addressed.

“For many years, our educational system in Barbados has not worked,” Dr Hinds Myrie said. “The inability of some young people to attend school during COVID is just a symptom. Even before the pandemic, while they were physically in school, they were not receiving the kind of education necessary to turn them into world citizens.”

“For many years our educational system in Barbados has not worked, and so those young people not being able to go to school during COVID is a symptom, [because] even before COVID when they were in school, they were not getting the kind of education that they needed to turn them into world citizens.”

Dr Hinds Myrie was also critical of the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (BSSEE), commonly known as the Common Entrance or 11 Plus exam, stating that the model still prioritises naturally gifted students while leaving the majority of children, often from at-risk homes, behind.

“We continue to hitch our education upon an examination that yearly siphons off the best five per cent of our students, and we work with that five per cent and we pretty much discard the 95 per cent,” she said. “Some of them in the middle, who are able to struggle and pull through because their parents can afford extra lessons, so perhaps in any one year 30 per cent of our students are really thriving and successfully completing education. The 70 per cent is left wanting . . . that is not something that COVID did, that is a reality that we have had around Barbados for a long time.”

The former head of the National Organisation of Women suggested that to truly address the educational failings that often lead to a life of crime for young persons, systemic issues within homes need to be tackled head-on.

She said: “The way that we don’t understand that the high levels of domestic violence that we have across the island is contributing to a home environment where no matter where you put the children, no matter how well organised the school is, they are coming into the school as shells of people because of the trauma, and stress, and displacement that they are facing in the home.”

She continued: “I’m talking about the high levels of incest; I’m talking about the fact that we still use physical abuse as one of the main means of punishment in society; I am talking about children not being supported emotionally and psychologically . . .  all of those are things that would affect our ability to educate our children, and we are still talking about [these things] as though they are disconnected.” (SB)