Dear Editor,
Minister of Education, Science and Technology Jerome Fitzgerald recently explained the latest results of the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) exams. The summary of the results was that the national grade average of The Bahamas remains a D.
Fitzgerald joins a long line of education ministers who have had the unnerving job of reporting to the public that, for the most part, our students are not learning the curriculum and hence are not being properly educated. No one to date has been able to break the back of the mediocrity of our children's exam performances, despite education receiving the lion's share of our annual budget.
There is enough blame to go around for our students' failures. Some say that the teachers are not delivering the message to the students in a way that they can understand. Some say that the schools need to implement a technical infrastructure and use teaching methods geared toward recent technological advances. Some say that more money needs to be pumped into the education budget.
These suggestions might hold merit, but I am of the view that the biggest reason why our students are failing is because of the substantive failure of parents becoming immersed in their children's progress or lack thereof.
Parents from all sectors of our society are channeling their children's energy into nonsensical activities and giving priorities to items that should be secondary. Parents are ensuring that their children wear name brand clothes and shoes to school, but refuse to purchase text books. Many students can be seen with the most stylish backpacks but these are empty because the students don't have any books to read.
Secondly, parents refuse to check their children's homework and do not ensure that their children have study periods while at home. Rather parents pay for cable, put flat-screen televisions in their children's room, and allow them to be up all hours of the night watching programs that stifle their child's creativity. Rather than discussing a math formula on the way to school, our students are discussing the latest sitcom.
In addition, parents do not attend PTA meetings. They ignore written notices from the principal sometimes claiming that they are too tired, and in a school year probably meet their child's homeroom teacher, principal or the guidance counselor only once. But let there be a mishap in school where their child was disciplined and they would come running to the school with shoe and cutlass in hand. Most parents have more energy when it comes to political rallies than to hear firsthand their child's progress. This is utter madness.
Furthermore, parents go all out for their children when it is time for prom. I have seen horse and carriages; limousines that I never knew existed in Nassau and designer clothes suitable for runway models when prom night arrives. Many of these children receive leaving certificates and some of them can't even read and write. The culmination of a school career should be a diploma and at the least an understanding of general subjects. The show and pageantry of proms misleads our students into believing that proms are the ultimate concluding event of their secondary educational career, when in fact the awards ceremony should be the most significant event of the school year.
The teachers and the Ministry of Education have to play a more meaningful role in the education of our students as well, but the bulk of the responsibility falls on the parents whose collective performance has been wretched. When it comes to performance many of our parents would probably score a D as well. I submit that unless Fitzgerald comes up with an ingenious plan to get many more parents more involved in the education of their children next year all he will have to do is change the date on his 2013 report.
Parents need to teach their children valuable life lessons. It makes no sense to spend hundreds of dollars on a prom, designer school uniforms, iPads and 4G cell phones when the child has not been challenged to pass his subjects, read and write and perform basic math computations. Right after school closes for 12th graders, reality sets in. But even then most parents don't realize the effect that an illiterate child will have on family life going forward.
There are many students entangled in the same educational system who are thriving and are paving their way for a bright future. This shows that for the most part there are still some dedicated parents out there who are going above and beyond to ensure that their children are productive in school.
In conclusion, I say if we want to blame somebody for our secondary education failure then blame the parents. Parental performance has been below average for decades now and I contend that until parents renew their focus and properly lead their children in the right direction that our national grade average will remain a D.
- Dehavilland Moss
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