by Rick Lowe (http://www.weblogbahamas.com)
The past day or two has seen an interesting exchange of letters to the editor of The Tribune by Mrs. Joan Thompson, the president of the Nassau Institute and Mr. Ralph Massey, a former member of the Nassau Institute, regarding the educational system in The Bahamas.
Mrs. Thompson's attempt at satire, to cause people to think outside the box about a difficult subject, where she proposed a private education system, raised the ire of Mr. Massey, who has written an essay, published and circulated by The Nassau Institute.
Taking umbrage with the Nassau Institute for expressing doubts, in some strong language, that the government can fix education, Mr. Massey, in a letter to the editor, seems to believe, at least publicly, the government can fix the problems.
Mr. Massey also chose some strong language to go after the Nassau Institute, but who is failing the children? Maybe his criticism of the Nassau Institute is misdirected, and of course should be turned toward the government.
In addition, if those of us that are interested in the future would stop massaging the people that have held the fate of the nations educational system in their grasp for many years, maybe, just maybe, we would have had some improvement a long time ago.
We must all hope the government can improve education, if they do not pursue vouchers or privatisation, because the children of this nation are being short changed by a system in serious decline, as Mr. Massey himself points out in his essay and his letter to the editor.
The government has its hands full and is having difficulty fulfilling our Constitutional Rights, let alone maintaining a welfare state, so we should be finding ways to relieve them of some of this burden.
We all know the the emperor has no clothes in the case of education, yet we suggest more of the same?
We also know there are numerous ways to skin a cat. Mr. Massey, and maybe others, prefer the government solving the problem they created, but many Bahamian's think our children deserve better and we should be mature enough to discuss these various visions for the education of our children and the advancement of our nation.
