Adrian Gibson
First published in The Tribune on Monday, August 17, 2009 under the byline, Young Man's View.
THIS year, a cross-section of students sitting the national exams have once again affirmed the infamous and unsatisfactory, almost predictable D national average.
Although the disappointing national average reflects the mean grade of all the students sitting the BGCSE/BJC exams, we must not, and should not, allow these crummy grades to cause us to forget to highlight the good students and their success stories, quality teachers and those dedicated parents. They have all earned praiseworthy results. Kudos to them!
Education is truly the great equalizer but, if the stakeholders in education do not have an appreciation for or a grasp of 20th century professor Emile Durkheim's sociology of education, we should expect to produce illiterate and mathematically-challenged graduates who can barely take menial jobs and to see more years of failing grades.
Addressing the correlation between society and education, the sociology of education promotes an understanding of all levels of the educational system, looking at the extent to which schools/universities are socializing institutions as well as the ways these educational outlets impact social mobility, social stratification and adult socio-economic success. The sociology of education also examines social stratification processes -- in and out of schools -- that play a huge role in education, for example, the noticeable impact on the linguistic skills of students attending certain schools and from certain homes in various sectors of society.
Studying the sociology of education would allow the Ministry of Education and educational stakeholders to analytically review how the current curriculum can/cannot contribute to the creation of a modern, culturally-sound society, as well as to better understand the role of education in fostering social change.
As an educator, I have discovered that students possess a wide array of multiple intelligences and learning styles that span the social spectrum, although I find that many students have a "bodily-kinesthetic" learning approach, which is usually coupled with another favoured learning style.
Frankly, many students fail the national exams because they simply cannot read! This must be corrected from the elementary level on up to senior high (even college) with an increased focus on reading comprehension in a child's formative years.
A new literacy approach must be taken to improve students' abilities to read and understand content by also teaching them to query reading materials. This outlook would foster discussion and heighten students' understanding of texts while encouraging them to make inferences. Teacher and student driven queries, student-teacher collaboration and the establishment of lesson goals for understanding -- by teachers -- would undoubtedly form the framework of a new literacy approach. Taking such an approach would assist students in constructing meaning as learners--in and out of a classroom.
In the Bahamas, the readability of content must be taken into account as it has a direct affect upon class cohesion and student perception. More books should be developed-across the subject areas--to correspond with the different grade levels and teachers must know the value of using more grade appropriate material and recognise the value of guided learning, where teachers build upon constructivist theories, intervene and facilitate in establishing student-driven activities and probe or comprehensively respond to questions.
By now, the Department of Education should have learnt that cramming too much into a textbook, hiring unqualified teachers and continuing to endorse a flawed curriculum will only continue to be an educational setback--countrywide!
The AG's office-- a clerk filing station!
"The AG's office is dysfunctional and is nothing more than a clerk filing station."
Those were the words of Rev Glenroy Bethel in October 2007 when he and several families of murdered victims on Grand Bahama spoke out against the inadequate functioning of the Attorney General's office in Freeport.
At that time, Mr Bethel asserted that the accused killers were being released on bail as a result of the long delays by the AG's office, that there was no Supreme Court judge to hear criminal or civil matters in Freeport, that only two of the four magistrate's courts were functioning, that there were no permanent prosecutors stationed at the AG's office in Grand Bahama and that 62 per cent of persons in prison were still awaiting dates for criminal matters to be brought before the courts.
In the case of the Bahamas legal system, many of Mr Bethel's concerns continue to plague our society and hinder those seeking justice.
These days, there is a need for at least 15 justices to be appointed to the Supreme Court to address the case backlog. In the 1990s, the then government brought in several Australian judges to reduce the number of cases. While more Bahamians should accept appointments to the court, if foreign judges must once again be brought in, then so be it.
The government must seek to extend court hours (night court) and appoint persons outside of the legal fraternity to judgeships in order to ensure the timely resolution of matters.
Why aren't murder trials completed within five years? Why should appeals take more than 18 months? Whatever happened to the case of my friend Chris Brown, a Certified Public Accountant, who was viciously killed and burnt in early 2006 after he had taken a fare from the airport (he drove a taxi as a hobby, paying homage to his father, who was a taxi driver)?
The entire legal process for convicted murderers should be completed within five years, which would allow for the death penalty. The AG's office needs to ensure that cases are being processed and also apply a time-frame to each case.
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