{"id":57402,"date":"2012-03-08T06:36:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T10:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/?p=57402"},"modified":"2012-03-08T06:36:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T10:36:59","slug":"commentary-going-beyond-universal-secondary-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-going-beyond-universal-secondary-education\/","title":{"rendered":"COMMENTARY: Going beyond universal secondary education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Aurelius Gordon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part one: The central problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

There has been a growing debate globally, regionally and locally as to the ways and means of achieving a\u00a0 higher quality of education\u00a0 at all levels while at the same time ensuring universal access for all students\u00a0 so as to ensure the maximum\u00a0 development of our human resource.<\/p>\n

Much too often, however; in The Caribbean, this important debate has tended to revolve\u00a0 around Universal Secondary Education only. Unfortunately, because of the sometimes very narrow and\u00a0 politically tribal nature of the discussions on this important topic, some stake holders in education have tended to forget that education is not only a life long process; but that the social, cultural, spiritual and economic needs of the whole human being, as body, mind and soul have to be the focus of education at all times and at every step of the process.<\/p>\n

Further, there is a critical need, in Dominica, The OECS and The Wider Caribbean and The Region of The Americas, to have an open and candid debate on all issues in education so as to establish local community ownership not only of the education system itself\u00a0 but also to clearly define and clarify for the benefit of all stake holders the very concept ,nature and scope of education as a foundation institution of our society along with the family. It must be very clearly understood by all our people\u00a0 that next to the family, the basic unit of society, education is the only institution which holds the maximum\u00a0 potential\u00a0 for\u00a0 transforming\u00a0 every aspect of our society for the better.<\/p>\n

It is my humble view that The Faculties of Education of the various\u00a0 State Colleges, The Ministries of Education, The Universities, all our Churches, National and Regional Media Houses, along with The Various National and Regional\u00a0 Private Sector\u00a0 Organizations, The Trade Unions,The Diaspora Community, The NGO Community, Parents, Teachers, and other stake holders should facilitate such a forum.<\/p>\n

The major objective of such a symposium would\u00a0 be to set out a broadly based strategy for shaping the agenda and process of education and human resource development\u00a0 policy as a fundamental tool for advancing national\u00a0 socio-economic, cultural, spiritual and political development into the twenty-first century and beyond in our region. We, as a people, need to begin seeing the whole person, from the cradle to the grave, as the proper\u00a0 focus of education and human resources development.<\/p>\n

The essential goal of\u00a0 any good education system has to be twofold. Firstly, education has to teach people how to live; secondly , education has to teach people how to earn a living and so fulfill one\u2019s\u00a0 life long role\u00a0 within a democratic state and the wider global village. All societies and civilizations which have made great strides in using education and human resource development effectively to advance the quality of life of their people; nations such as Cuba, Germany, China, Singapore, Canada, Sweden and India have established policies to facilitate the educational development of their people from birth to life beyond the grave. In our region, we are yet to clarify in our public policy processes that the most important foundation of all education is the home and then\u00a0 the pre-school. That is where education begins and must be put right\u2026..in the very foundation!!!<\/p>\n

According to the most authoritative and proven research in Educational Psychology , the peak age of learning is not the age of secondary school but the age of two to four years up to\u00a0 the age of six. This is where our resources and policies need to focus. If we are able to fully integrate early childhood learning\u00a0 at home and our pre-schools into our national school system within the next four years; If we are able to fully train our pre-school teachers and have them on full pay as any other teacher within the next four years; If\u00a0 we are able to have proper pre-schools established in all our communities; If we are able to intervene early\u00a0 with proper parenting skills training for our new parents ,most , if not all of the problems of poor literacy, academic underachievement, and delinquency which we experience in our primary and secondary schools can be nipped in the bud at the preschool level.<\/p>\n

All the established scientific evidence demonstrates that once children are taught a love of learning very early in life, in the home and at pre-school, most of\u00a0 our problems with Reading, Math, Social Studies\u00a0 and\u00a0 Science\u00a0 at the primary and secondary school levels can be solved before they take root. We need to learn from the nations mentioned above which have done it successfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part one: The central problem There has been a growing debate globally, regionally and locally as to the ways and means of achieving a\u00a0 higher quality of education\u00a0 at all levels while at the same time ensuring universal access for…","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCOMMENTARY: Going beyond universal secondary education - Dominica News Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/homepage\/features\/commentary\/commentary-going-beyond-universal-secondary-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COMMENTARY: Going beyond universal secondary education - 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