My Education Reform Synopsis

 

 

Education Reform!

This is this Government’s remit

But without a national needs-assessment

Very little will stick.

 

Now what do I mean by this

As if you didn’t know?

I mean the needs going forward

That such an assessment will show.

 

Education reform is not a moment

Wherein is the “Aha!”

It is not a planned event

Like a school tour to a spa.

 

It is what countries do

Year after year

Looking at their opportunities,

Their threats and their fears.

 

It is pretty sad,

I must admit

That this notion of education reform

Is not a habit.

 

For years we’ve adopted packages

Then we’ve thrown them out,

And given the political interference

I have had my doubts.

 

For politicians make a name

At the expense of the people

And then bask in their retirement

In their crystal cathedral.

 

And the politicians I mean

Are not only the ones in the House

But the academics

With whom they play cat and mouse.

 

 

The propagandists

From the University on the hill

Who very often behave as though

Education was left for them in a will.

 

The way they pronounce

And enounce and declare,

Displaying their political partisanship

Fooling people they know the way.

 

A needs assessment

Would involve the question of leadership

Regarding the qualities needed

To steer the national ship.

 

Creating more profitable opportunities

For entrepreneurial endeavor

And building out capacity

For feed-ourselves agriculture.

 

Reducing dependence on tourism

After seeing it’s a risk

And having all our eggs in one basket

Is not prudence or thrift.

 

We speak of white papers,

Of other colours and all,

But somehow it appears to me

These ventures invariably stall.

 

Reform must be purposeful

In targeting the needy

And uplifting the socio-economic depressed

Offsetting our stability.

 

Reform must check the fallout

Attributed to the high incidence of crime

That is no doubt done by past students

Who wasted their educative time.

 

Reform must look at resources

At home and abroad

Including the human capital,

Especially those on whom we can call.

 

 

Reform must consider the damage

That COVID-19 has done

When many were left at the station

When the Internet train was set to run.

 

Some were even left at home

With no Internet facilities

But the educational endeavor continued

Ignoring these abnormalities.

 

And nothing is being done

To ameliorate their severe circumstances

And it seems like business as usual

Where the best grab the chances.

 

 

Reform education

Cannot be about an elitist system

For when the top is creamed off

The remaining milk is a problem.

 

I heard one today

That made my head grow,

It was a statistic about the world’s richest

That I definitely did not know.

 

The top 1% of the world

Owns 80% of the world’s wealth,

If that is also reflected at the local level

It’s not good for our country’s health.

 

There must be some balance

That addresses the greed of the rich

That hold this country to ransom

And it must be reform’s remit.

 

They that can carry themselves

Must be encouraged to do so

And even spare a little of their largess

To help lighten Government’s load.

 

Leaving no child behind

Must be more than a slogan,

It must be at the heart of the matter

If we are to get reform done.

 

Reform education’s goal

Must be about empowering the poor,

Providing opportunities for training

And accessing open doors.

 

 

A country’s weakest link

Is its poor and down trodden

Who, given their human instinct to survive,

Do become everybody’s problem.

 

The rich in their ivory towers

And the well to do in their terraces

Become the targets of the down and out

That become societal nuisances.

 

Education reform must visualize

A Barbados of five years in the short term

Ten to twenty years in the mid term

And fifty to sixty years in the long term.

 

The stakeholders in such a venture

Can ill afford to be passive

But in every sense of the word

Must be active, assertive and aggressive.

 

 

Accountability must be premium

Regarding clearly defined responsibilities

And with the motto pride and industry

Must be empathy and honesty.

 

Reform must be about linking

And networking

And the development of a people

That despises any type of shirking.

 

Education reform

Must not make us vassals of others

That use their might to intimidate

And to smother.

 

Reform must help us

Differentiate between the following two:

Mothering and smothering of which

England was of the latter hue.

 

Education reform 

Must be about climbing ladders;

The right ladders of course,

For the wrong ones are a bother.

 

Not ladders borrowed 

That cannot be applied here;

Our learning institutions have been such

And this is my fear.

 

At the very top it was discovered

The wrong ladder had been climbed

And the summit to be attained

Was another building and time.

Reform must be applicable

To our needs now and in the future

Or otherwise will be an exercise in futility 

Generating more trauma. 

   

It must be about a Barbados

For all Barbadians bar none

That understand the nature of the race

That we all need to run.

 

Bearing in mind

That Education reform is a process

Via which we will be enriched by its success

Or be engulfed in its mess.

 

 

Education reform

Will create the country we desire,

Hopefully, our desire will be towards God

And through godliness aspire.

 

Stewart Russell © December 3, 2022