“We must educate our future masters” a quote by Robert Lowe, Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) in England during the debate on the Bill of Education Act of 1870.
Economic and social transformation in Britain
As Britain moved away from its reliance on colonization and the benefits of the slave trade for its prosperity in the early 1800s, it recognized that literacy of the masses was critical to being competitive. The Napoleonic War had recently ended and Britain was at the heights of the Second Industrial Revolution but the industrialists feared that the country’s dominance of world trade was being threatened by inadequate education. At the same time, the first movements towards universal suffrage (manhood suffrage) began and as enfranchisement widened through the Reform Act of 1832, corresponding Education Bills were enacted. By the time of the second Reform Act of 1867, it was widely accepted that there was need to educate the citizens recently enfranchised to vote wisely. This gave rise to the Elementary Education Act 1870, which among other things allowed for the schooling of all children (of the poor for free) over the age of 5 and under 13 years.
Naturally, there were objections by vested interests to the concept of universal education: first, the churches which were funded by the state to educate the poor, did not want to lose that power; secondly many factory owners feared losing their source of cheap (child) labour; and finally the ruling classes thought that it would make the masses ‘think’ and see their lives as dissatisfying and could lead to revolt.
Unsung Jamaican Hero
“Having decided to adopt universal adult suffrage, and with illiteracy as high as it is, we must follow up this by adopting what we do in old England”. These were the words of Mr. E.E.A. Campbell, Member of the Legislative Council of Jamaica during the debate on the Elementary Education (Cess) Law in May 1943. Needless to say, the motion failed and was withdrawn on the assurance by the Colonial Secretary that the government would explore the possibility of enshrining into law a minimum amount for elementary education. In the general election that followed in 1944 (first under adult suffrage) the electorate chose Mr. Florizel Glasspole of the Peoples National Party (PNP) for the seat in Kingston East & Port Royal over Mr. Campbell and the rest they say is history.
Unlike children of the privileged, Mr. Campbell did not get secondary education at Jamaica College but migrated; years later he returned to the island as a Research Chemist. He developed the process of extracting pimento oil from the leaves of the tree from which the Colony earned L25000 in 1943. He claimed responsibility for the establishment of the Rent Restriction Board, passing of the Excess Profit Law and fought with success for the equality of women as voters and jurors.
Elementary debate
The debate on the Elementary Education (Cess) Law is probably one of the most informed and intelligent debate ever held in the parliament of Jamaica. Mr. Campbell made reference to the political organization in Britain in its ability to direct the votes of the illiterates and stated that there was no parallel here in Jamaica at the time.
The contribution of general education to development was traced from Prussia, Austria, France and eventually to Britain. And he quoted Washington, Jefferson and Madison former Presidents of the United States to show how seriously that great democracy regarded education of its citizens.
Mr. Campbell spoke passionately about illiteracy and I quote; “The wiping out of illiteracy is a desirable object, beneficial to every citizen in the land. Prison population will be reduced insanity and poverty will be decreased consequent on more intelligent living, and reaction towards life itself. Our new constitution will have a fair chance of success and enable us to demonstrate our capacity for government. The spread of general education will enable our people to demonstrate a healthy activity of individual freedom, and yet a collective obedience to established authority. We in this House at this time and on the eve of our political experiment will do well to pause and ponder upon our new responsibilities- responsibilities to our illiterate youths, responsibilities to our very selves. This problem of illiteracy must be tackled firmly and resolutely, and at once, lest the stream of evils which accompany it eat away the foundation of our new political advance and show our ineptitude to prepare against obvious dangers.”
Built on sand
The Elementary Education (Cess) Law proposed a cess on export to raise L100000 devoted to the building of schools, which over 20 years would provide sufficient building to house every child of school age. Based on the value of export at the time, the cess approximated to a 2.5% charge. Alternately it was proposed to raise the needed revenue as an Excise Tax on rum, which was a tenth of what was charged in Britain. If there was one thing that was agreed it was that expanding education could not be done from General Revenue. The education budget represented 8.8% of gross expenditure compared to 11% of the total expenditure budget for 2005/2006. However, it is important to adjust to current budget numbers by removing estimates for secondary and tertiary education to compare likes, which makes expenditure on elementary education, at best 7% of the budget for 2005/2006.
The shambles in education started in 1957 with the introduction of the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) system. Instead of devoting more funds to elementary education, money was diverted to the secondary schools as a political ploy to fool poor people. By 1973 it got much worse with the announcement of “free education” from secondary to tertiary level. Then to “add insult to injury” the government started to back-fill and established the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL) in 1974 to do for adults what is was unwilling to do for children; teach them to read, write and count.
Education Tax
It took 40 years for the motion by Mr. Campbell to resurface, and in July 1983 a special revenue measure known as the Education Tax was introduced. The difference in purpose with this tax as against that proposed in 1943 is its use for recurrent educational expenditures, in other words, to augment general revenue.
Reap the whirlwind
In Galatians 6: 7 it reads ….for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
We the citizens of this country have made some poor choices and our inability to discern genuine from fake and truth from fiction has placed us all in this predicament. A situation that National Security Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips in a speech on March 15th, 2007 referred to as a wave of criminality caused by the failure of politics, insufficient budgetary allocation and the education system.
Both political parties have played their part in the destruction of the hope of generations- from the tinkering of the CEE by Edwin Allen to free education by Michael Manley. The result is that today we probably have more illiterates “graduating” from secondary schools than illiterates in 1943 that never graced the door of a schoolroom.
As long as this unbridled suffrage remain intact, politicians will continue to pander to the “poor” knowing that the educated minority will be outvoted. It is ironic that it was in 1943 that Abraham Moslow developed the Theory of Human Motivation, popularly referred to as the Hierarchy of Needs. The problem in Jamaica is that the majority of the people are at the bottom of the pyramid, in the “psychological zone”, beyond which nothing else matters, not “safety”, “love/belonging”, “esteem” nor “self-actualization”, those are all pipe- dreams.
I wish it was not so!
Source: Jamaica Gleaner, Wikipedia.com, Ministry of Finance and Planning Jamaica
