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INDEPENDENT Senator Dr Paul Richards has described school dropouts as “a time bomb that has exploded.”
He was speaking in the budget debate in the Senate on Friday.
He asked whether the approximately $80 billion allocated to education in budgets from 2015-2025 has been properly used to address problems in the sector.
“Is this investment producing the kinds of citizens that we want?
Richards reminded citizens that the school “is the one agency that every citizen must pass through by law.”
He asked if at-risk youths have been addressed before they cross paths with the criminal element and whether the education system produced kinder citizens or innovative citizens who can compete globally.
Richards was happy that Government recognised it could not spend its way out of a crime crisis by “pouring more funds only to national security.”
He said, “That is when the proverbial crap has hit the fan.”
The education system, Richards continued, must intervene “when at-risk youth begin to go down the wrong path.”
He disagreed that the education system had collapsed.
“I think it is an unfair and overly dramatic statement. But there are serious gaps in the education sector.”
Richards did not believe those gaps were being effectively addressed. He said there were obvious consequences of these gaps for the wider society.
One of those gaps was school dropouts.
Richards believed this is “a time bomb that is already exploding and exploded on the streets and is manifesting significantly through crime, poverty and homelessness.”
He said 2,800 children dropped out of primary and secondary schools from 2020-2022.
“You will note that this was during the (covid19) pandemic.”
Referring to a July 2014 UWI study on school dropouts, Richards said students drop out mainly from secondary schools because of issues which had their genesis in primary schools.
“It is complete and utter madness.”
Many students who drop out of school are lured into a life of crime, he said.
“Are we just going to say, ‘Well, they just chose to drop out,’ and then deal with it in the police stations?”
Richards said fertile grounds for school dropouts are created at the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam when students are segregated into “bright” and “also ran.” He said students in the latter category never recover from the trauma of not being admitted to a prestige school.
Richards asked why quality education cannot be provided in both government and denominational schools.
“What is so difficult (about that)?”
He thanked Government for tackling what some people have described as a textbook cartel.
“It is a cartel where books – one paragraph is changed in a book, and the school requires the book to be updated so there is no passing-down of the book to siblings, friends, family or people that you don’t know (but) you want to contribute to their education.
Because a new edition of the book is required each year, he said: “You could make seven textbooks for the same subject and make plenty money. There is no passing-down of the book or sharing of the material that has value.
“That has to be broken up.”
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