Dear Editor,
I was dumbfounded when my wife, who volunteers at a primary school, told me she was so heartbroken for a little girl who could not sit the Grade Six Achievement Test because she could not read, though she was in the sixth grade.
How could this happen? What use are the teachers? What use is the Ministry of Education? What a waste of our human resources and our tax dollars? When will the Jamaican people demand more of our leaders or, more appropriately, misleaders?
We have been turning out tens of thousands of illiterates for generations and we wonder why our productivity is so low that we cannot even compete with the smallest of our Caribbean neighbours. We wonder why our unemployment rate is so high, why crime is out of control, and why our people have become so degenerate and depraved? Do our leaders have no shame?
Our leaders seem quite content driving around in their big, expensive SUVs, wearing the most expensive clothes, dining at the most exclusive restaurants, and, of course, residing in the most exclusive neighbourhoods, while most of the rest of us wallow in poverty, struggling daily to put food on our tables. Don't they have any shame?
What is going to happen to our country if this continues much longer? Do the people have to riot and burn down the country for change to come? The oppression of the masses is getting unbearable as the agents of the State hammer them for more taxes, more fees, and less service. They cry out for basics such as water and decent roads to walk, ride, and drive upon, or manageable classroom populations. It is only a matter of time before it erupts like a volcano.
Wake up, Jamaica before there is no coffee to smell.
Andre Bell
jahmekya.ja@gmail.com
The big picture
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I was dumbfounded when my wife, who volunteers at a primary school, told me she was so heartbroken for a little girl who could not sit the Grade Six Achievement Test because she could not read, though she was in the sixth grade.
How could this happen? What use are the teachers? What use is the Ministry of Education? What a waste of our human resources and our tax dollars? When will the Jamaican people demand more of our leaders or, more appropriately, misleaders?
We have been turning out tens of thousands of illiterates for generations and we wonder why our productivity is so low that we cannot even compete with the smallest of our Caribbean neighbours. We wonder why our unemployment rate is so high, why crime is out of control, and why our people have become so degenerate and depraved? Do our leaders have no shame?
Our leaders seem quite content driving around in their big, expensive SUVs, wearing the most expensive clothes, dining at the most exclusive restaurants, and, of course, residing in the most exclusive neighbourhoods, while most of the rest of us wallow in poverty, struggling daily to put food on our tables. Don't they have any shame?
What is going to happen to our country if this continues much longer? Do the people have to riot and burn down the country for change to come? The oppression of the masses is getting unbearable as the agents of the State hammer them for more taxes, more fees, and less service. They cry out for basics such as water and decent roads to walk, ride, and drive upon, or manageable classroom populations. It is only a matter of time before it erupts like a volcano.
Wake up, Jamaica before there is no coffee to smell.
Andre Bell
jahmekya.ja@gmail.com
The big picture
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