The country’s 2005 education conference has come and gone, and we anxiously await the outcome.
We’re sure the report from the conference and eventual legislation that is derived from it will be filled with excellent ideas to improve the education system in the Cayman Islands.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this process repeated time after time as new governments take control.
It is our strong hope and prayers that this government will do something none other has; that it will act on the new education policies and not just simply pay them lip service.
Too often in the past the same issues have been brought up and there has been a fevered frenzy to put together a conference, come up with excellent ideas for improvement and pass legislation, but to no avail.
In the end, the only thing that is going to make any new or re-hashed education policy work is holding students accountable.
Testing should be done at all grade levels to ensure that Johnny and Sally can read, that they can do math, that they do have the necessary life skills to perform in the workplace.
Holding students accountable means that elected officials don’t interfere with the education system when Johnny’s parent is upset because he’s not passing.
Holding students accountable means that those in government don’t butt in when Sally’s having a bad day with her English teacher.
We are blessed to have good people in the Education Department in the Cayman Islands. We firmly believe those people can and will do a wonderful job of educating our youngsters if given the right direction and then being left alone to perform the tasks they were hired to do.
We hope that everyone at that conference – especially the ones who make policy – took to heart what Cayman businessman Conor O’Dea had to say about the quality and inconsistency among school leavers attempting to enter the workforce.
If we don’t hold our students accountable and train them in skilled labour, both technical and professional, then we are facing a drained pool of Cayman labourers within five years.
As a businessman he told Cayman’s education professionals and government that many students leaving school today just plain aren’t a good investment.
That’s a scary statement and one that government must take seriously to heart.
He’s telling all of us that many of our children who go through the government education programme aren’t worth hiring.
The solution to this problem demands much more than lip service.
We hope this government takes its job seriously and uses the information from the conference to once and for all do what few past governments have done – set an education policy of improvement and stick to it.
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