Whenever and wherever mediocrity is enthroned – shoddiness and lousiness abound.
Such is the state of affairs throughout our beloved land in the thirty sixth anniversary of its achievement of Independence.
Whenever educators get together, there is always someone or the other to remind them of the fact that the nation’s educational systems are operating at a far from optimal level.
Just as predictably, there would be in such circles some one or the other – invariably a feather-bedded bureaucrat – who would come forward with some defense of the indefensible.
Such efforts usually involve crafty word games about this or that standard or measurement.
But since facts are truly stubborn things, any employer worth his salt would tell you that today’s average graduate teeters on the edge of illiteracy when he leaves school after some twelve years of so-called education.
Something has got to be wrong with this picture.
Evidently, the something wrong could not be about money. As the record of the past thirty six years of Independence would show – if examined – successive administrations have pumped billions of dollars into that project that is schooling in the Bahamas.
Results have been mixed.
On the positive side, the Bahamas has produced some of the men and women who are – quite literally speaking – among the best and the brightest in the world.
This best and brightest appellation could be applied to an elite coterie of professionals in fields such as law, education, accounting, medicine and engineering, among some others.
These people know that standards do matter, thus the nature and content of what they know. What they know and what they do so very well comes as a direct consequence of having been taught in certain schools of the highest repute in the world.
These men and women are working at world standards.
Sadly, the same cannot be said about what is happening in schooling and education for the so-called masses or for that small number of people who would aspire to work in the public service.
The fact of the matter is that standards are low and mediocrity reigns.
D+ marks the spot, so to speak.
This is to be regretted in the extreme.
There is no way in the world that Bahamians would be able to compete in a world where standards are far higher.
But as troubling as this is, there is a matter that is far more insidious.
This matter has to do with the proliferation of any number of so-called ‘Colleges’ that routinely purport that they are in the business of education and training.
Now that hard times have fallen, Bahamians in their tens of thousands are finally constrained to trouble themselves with thinking about what the future might hold.
And now, they are thinking about standards and value for money.
They are now understanding that, a standard – by definition –is something "…something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality…"
There is on the horizon a dawning realization that things are not what they should be.
In this regard, we are today heartened by the fact that some of this nation’s key stakeholders are convinced that the system itself is in crisis.
These people and agencies include the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce; the Bahamas Employers Confederation; the National Congress of Trade Unions; the Bahamas Hotel Association; the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union; the Bahamas Hotel Employers Association; and the Nassau Tourism and Development Board.
Their warning is to the effect that this country’s present education "crisis" would have a serious detrimental impact on the national economy by the year 2020 if immediate steps are not taken to put in place reforms.
We wholeheartedly agree.
We are totally agreed with any and all educators who know that standards do matter.
