Dear PM & Mr. Claire Browne
I wish to add my little two pence to the present discussion concerning the behaviours of our young people today, especially those in our secondary schools.
According to my observation, it seems as though statistics has shown us that a high percentage of the troublemakers in the schools are from the depressed and impoverished communities such as Gray’s Farm, Green Bay, Ottos, Bendals, Golden Grove, Point, Villa, Clare Hall and the Fort Rd areas.
It is my view, that these are the areas where social standards are limited and the residents, survive from pay cheque to pay cheque..In addition, the culture of harnessing the children with much values is also questionable.
In these communities, fights & arguments ( cussing) become the order of the day and hence, these practices follow individuals wherever they go. As a result, they will always be a reflection or a product of their environment and perhaps create the chaos that we are experiencing today.
Therefore, I think the Gov’t should move away from placing all student into a school nearest to their place of resident and look at a system to minimize that high concentration of students leaving from the same primary school and been place in the same seconadary school after the students has passed their common entrance exam.
Students from the affluent areas should be integrated with those students from the impoverished areas. It may only need a proper transportation system to accommodate the students.
Let us not forget the cliche that birds of a feather will always flock together and if you lie with dogs you will rise with their flees.
Alex
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A very interesting perspective. The education system is very prejudice. Why is AGS, AGHS etc also getting the best teachers?
@BB It’s not really prejudice. If they get the best teachers, it would be because they traditionally get most of the best students. Good teachers are needed to teach the complicated stuff to the students who are most likely to make use of it.
Buddy Bloke. While it seems the best teachers are at AGHS & AGS, why is this so? Don’t tell me that we only have 30 or 40 elite teachers. If the teachers are as good and dedicated at the Teachers Union would have us believe, then we should have 100s of elite teachers. What is the problem?
Why would any parent send their child to school in an undesirable area, especially considering the climate of violence in those areas.
Whilst I understand the idea presented, it is probably not feasible to force poor kids to have to commute far away from their homes. What if they miss the free bus sometimes and now have to find money to get to school or home? Why not improve the communities instead? Having most of the children there in one place might make special targeted interventions to help them succeed in spite of poverty more easily possible.
Most of these communities mentioned in the above article are highly populated with non-nationals. Back then, we would leave the primary schools to the nearest secondary schools to your community or within your community, and 99.99% of us turned out good. We didn’t have what we are seeing now with our youth.
If you drive or walk through the communities listed above in the article, you will find big grown men on the block with teens smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. Back in my days that would never happen. Some of these older men know that would not happened in their time so I don’t know why they’re encouraging such behavior amongst them.
For example, they are children already leaving their homes in the community of Five Island and attending the Sir Novelle Richards Academy of Science in Potter’s/Tomlinson. The culture these teens are living in need to change starting with their parents (mothers and fathers) especially fathers.
The case with AGS and AGHS having the best teachers, I don’t really agree. Students from these schools are naturally smart so in return they catch on the work much easier and in return the teachers look good
@My 5 cents
The case can be argued that if you put weak teachers in those institutions then the children will still excel based on their natural aptitude.
Really as much as we would like to compare, the students at these schools are there because they have shown to be the best. Obviously not all but the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
Not completely true. The teacher does make a difference. As someone who attended one of those schools, I caught on a lot faster from a particular excellent Math teacher. She left for one year and, although I still learned from the next teacher, I was always a lot weaker in her topics even going into CXC I had to review them a lot more and I forgot some of that later on after the exam whereas I could remember everything the other teacher taught for life. The excellent teacher returned after one year and things in Math went back to being easy.
It’s a rather interesting angle and concept but that would also present quite a challenge for parents who would them be burdened with transportation and other costs to get their kids to school that are further from their homes. I think that it was that consideration initially that necessitated the placement of children closest to their place of residence.
Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Many years ago people spoke out about the bastardization of society with so many unwedded mothers. Government incentivizes this behaviour by giving single mothers more stuff and then young girls see this and are willing to participate.
Why can’t married couples get grants and support from government? The culture of bastards must stop if any country wants to be further developed from the agrarian level.