by Jean Lowrie-Chin | Observer column | 28 January 2013
TARRANT High School is a microcosm of today’s Jamaica. Here we have a
dedicated principal, Garfield Higgins, who has convinced his students
that ‘it is cool to be bright’, losing the support of some of his
teachers because he is a stickler for excellence.
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| HIGGINS… in 10 years, my objective is to have your perception so altered that you will choose Tarrant as your first choice |
We had read about Mr Higgins in a feature written last February by
Observer reporter Denise Dennis who noted that the school, which had
introduced a sixth form just five years before, boasted 100 per cent
CAPE passes in communication studies, food and nutrition, management of
business, as well as art and design.
The school’s inspiring principal has his ‘Vision 2022’ well in place:
“In 10 years, my objective is to have your perception so altered that
you will choose Tarrant as your first choice,” he told Dennis. “And how
do we achieve this? By increasing the output of the quality of passes
that we get at the school.”
The report continued: “He added that he was not in the “business of
bellyaching” that they do not get the best students. ‘We don’t get the
best students, so what? We have to [make] do with what we get, and we
can’t sit down and twiddle our thumbs and not do what we need to do,
which is to educate people’s children. I am firm on that,’ Higgins
said.”
Higgins may be a dream to his students and their parents, but it seems
he is a nightmare for some teachers, thank God, in the minority, as he
told a news reporter last week. Those teachers have a problem with
attendance and punctuality, and do not want to stop their selling
activities at the school!
Indeed, they had a demonstration against Mr Higgins. One day last week,
some refused to take classes for several hours, although they were
present at the school. One wonders if they will be paid for that day out
of the country’s meagre resources.
We hope that the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and the Ministry of
Education will be of one clear voice in their expectations of our
teachers. The National Education Association in the US has been
emphasising accountability and productivity in the profession,
acknowledging that even as its mandate is to protect the rights of its
members, uppermost must be the national imperative for quality education
delivered by quality teachers.
The situation at Tarrant High is replicated across the land, where
valiant Jamaicans who are trying to serve with excellence are reviled
and sometimes ostracised. I have dubbed this ‘a conspiracy of
mediocrity’ — lazy, corrupt managers and workers preserving their
comfort zone by sidelining intelligent, enthusiastic producers.
Excellence and accountability are anathema to the corruption that is
practised in high and low places.
In that brave production by National Integrity Action (NIA), The Cost of
Corruption broadcast on television recently, we saw the disgrace of
Operation Pride, where millions of dollars have disappeared.
We saw the obstacles put in the way of the Financial Services Commission
as they tried to bring Olint to heel. Justice was served eventually on
Olint’s David Smith in the US, while we dragged our feet despite
evidence that the majority of those burned by the scheme were Jamaicans.
The authorities in the US are trying to locate and return monies to
US based investors — the Jamaicans have had to kiss theirs goodbye. NIA
head Professor Trevor Munroe suggested that because both political
parties had received big campaign bucks from Olint, there was no hurry
to bring Smith to justice here.
The documentary also featured criminologist Professor Anthony Harriott
explaining how ‘dons’ were allowed to embed themselves in communities.
As we rightly show concern for the lives lost in the Tivoli operation to
capture Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, we should take note of Professor
Harriott’s observations.
He said that weeks before the operation, the community had been highly
mobilised. He referred to a demonstration against the authorities by
about 800 women wearing white, some of them bearing placards announcing
‘We will die for Dudus’. He reminded us of attacks against the State,
with the murder of police officers and the burning of police stations.
He said approximately 400 persons were involved in the armed defence of
Tivoli. After the operation he said, “Almost 100 weapons were found
including 45 rifles, grenades — pretty sophisticated stuff.”
This is what faced our security forces when they advanced on the
community. No wonder the poor public defender Earl Witter is ill. How do
you gather facts for a situation like this, where guilty and innocent
alike were caught up in so much illegal firepower?
And so, as gangs still continue to fight for a foothold in our country,
fuelled by the millions they have scammed from terrorised US retirees,
we have to thank the US for pushing us to enact laws to fight this
plague. We beg them to help us expedite the anti-gang legislation that
keeps moving to the back of the line.
We also dearly hope that come March of this year, political campaign
financing legislation will be passed, as it has already been adopted by
Parliament. If that well researched reform drafted by the Electoral
Commission of Jamaica had been on the law books, political parties would
not have been able to accept donations from an organisation such as
Olint. Thus, David Smith would not have been cosseted for such an
extended period, and many families would have been spared from his wily
ways.
We see that the scrap metal trade will resume today, even as our utility
companies quake at the prospect. No one is trying to deprive folks of
an honest living, and so we hope that the promises of stricter
monitoring will be kept.
On behalf of Principal Higgins and all hard-working and truly patriotic
Jamaicans, let us expose and address this pervasive conspiracy of
mediocrity and corruption. And let us jettison anyone who would stand in
the way of solid governance, the only way to give our economy a fair
chance at recovery.
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