Minister warns curriculum marginalises Barbadian history

Barbados risks losing touch with its identity by teaching generations too little about their own history, Minister for Pan-African Affairs and Heritage, Trevor Prescod, has warned, as he renews calls for comprehensive reform of the island’s education system.

Prescod argued that the education system continues to sideline its own history, leaving generations disconnected from their identity.

Speaking on the sidelines of a cultural heritage workshop on Wednesday, Prescod said the problem extends from secondary schools straight through to tertiary institutions.

“All our institutions of tertiary education, even our secondary systems, allow whoever is the powers that be to take our history out of the curriculum of the school system,” he said. “[They] put in two or three words or two or three lines.”

Prescod noted that while the Caribbean has produced some of the region’s most respected historians, their work is not reaching students early enough.

“It’s only in the 1960s and 1970s that we saw the emergence in Barbados of some of the best historians across the Caribbean and probably among the world,” he said, referencing scholars such as Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Dr Henderson Carter and Dr Rodney Worrell.

“Those books are not read by our people until they reach the level of tertiary education.”

By that stage, he suggested, many students are no longer engaged with deeper learning.

“When people reach the level of tertiary education, they want a bank book or they want bank cards… no time for books.”

At the core of his concern, Prescod said, is what he described as a long-standing pattern of cultural erasure.

“You can’t have a people that at many different periods in the history [have] been stripped of having knowledge of themselves,” he said. “If there’s one constant, it is the effort to keep deculturising our people.”

He argued that this disconnect is reflected not only in what is taught, but in how Barbadians perceive their own identity and expression.

“There’s a uniqueness about us… the way we sing, the way we talk,” he said.  “But all of those qualities are perceived by the educated class as inferior.”

“So most of us don’t believe that we can articulate ourselves unless we speak standard English.”

Prescod said he now intends to take those concerns directly to the Ministry of Education Transformation, revealing that discussions with the minister are expected shortly.

“Minister Chad Blackman has indicated that he’s willing to meet with us… he said that he will meet with us hopefully within a week or so,” he said.

He added that he plans to bring academic voices into the discussion, including Professor Carter and Dr Worrell, to help shape any proposed adjustments.

“I’ve made some suggestions to the ministry before, but I don’t believe that those are the recommendations that he should fully endorse without engaging other people who are already in academia,” Prescod said.

He stressed that any reform must go beyond structural changes and instead help restore a sense of identity and belonging among Barbadians.

“What would success look like? It is all towards a journey of national identity,” he said. “There’s a necessity for our people to be able to identify with things.”

Prescod’s latest comments build on his earlier calls for education reform to centre Caribbean and African history, warning that without this, efforts to modernise the system will remain incomplete. 

(SM)