Jamaica Observer column by Jean Lowrie-Chin | 22 SEPT 2014
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| A street in Barbados ..from www.werelivingafulllife.blogspot.com |
I have to admit I felt a bit envious of those clean
streets when I visited Barbados last year.
At frequent intervals, we saw signs warning against littering, and the
hefty fines for doing so. “They watch
you, and they catch you,” explained our taxi driver. “They don’t joke!”
Well, the joke seems to be on us here in Jamaica,
where we are seeing not a beautification, but a “buttu-fication” of our
surroundings. In a country where our
leaders seems to lurch from one political campaign to the next, the basic
business of keeping our country clean gets overlooked. Now as the ChikV disease claims multiple
victims each day, we hear an appeal going up for a clean-up day to destroy
mosquito breeding sites. Does this mean that
with 216 parish councillors, this is not an ongoing activity?
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| Jamaicans do their part on ICCD |
However, we cannot blame the garbage issue solely on
the authorities. We all have a
responsibility to keep our environment clean.
Last Saturday on International
Coastal Clean-Up Day (ICCD), we saw photographs online of
areas inundated with plastic bottles and other types of garbage.
I recall being at a picnic in Maryland with my
friend Joy Rodgers and seeing her send her children to pick up litter. Then she sent them to an area where we had
not been sitting, to pick up more. She
explained to me: “I want my children to
leave places even cleaner than they found them.” What an important lesson, as her children
were being reminded of their responsibility to this planet whose good health
will determine ours – physically and economically.
Plastics
in particular, are a serious threat to the livelihood of our fisherfolk. A Jamaica Observer report quotes Nelson
Andrade Colmenares of UNEP's Caribbean Environment Programme: "the impact
of plastics is not only disastrous but expensive, generating US$13 billion in
annual damages to marine ecosystems.”
We are
grateful that the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) was able to coordinate such a
massive operation for ICCD, engaging 9,000 volunteers in
130 locations islandwide. Now it is up
to the leaders in our communities, to follow up with a maintenance programme so
all of this good work is not in vain.
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| A Jamaican school - Gleaner photo |
“Mediocre”
schools
Are
we racing or slouching towards “Vision 2030”?
We have to ask, having heard that, in a presentation to the House of
Parliament last Wednesday, the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) is not
seeing any improvement in our school system, based on a recent study of 129
schools in its latest assessment.
Senior
Staff Reporter Balford Henry quoted the analysis: "With over 800 schools inspected, it is clear, based on
the data that these trends are not likely to change, when the entire baseline
study of 954 schools is completed. And this means that we have sufficient
evidence to show that the level of performance system-wide is, for the most
part, mediocre -- with the primary schools lagging behind the secondary
ones."
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| Children making good progress in Digicel Foundation/USAID/Min of Education Enrichment programme |
In the meanwhile, I know that there
are dedicated public servants at the Ministry of Education who have been
working assiduously to have our schools produce better results, beginning with
that all important foundation of early childhood education. The USAID has also
joined forces with the Ministry and the Digicel Foundation to roll out a
Schools Enrichment Programme focusing on literacy, numeracy and the sciences.
We know that there are still
exceptional teachers in the system, but they need to ensure that the less
dedicated do not give the profession a bad name. We have to support the
Minister in his appeal that teachers take their leave outside of the 190 days
on which teaching takes place. We were
surprised to hear that 95 percent of teachers’ applications for leave took
place during the time of instruction. If
we do the math, our teachers have another 175 days in which to apply for leave! For those of us who are limited to two- or
three-week vacations, we are dismayed that this is not thought to be a
reasonable request from the Minister.
The Ministry of Education certainly has some huge
challenges, but our teachers should know that with technology racing ahead,
those who will not step up to give better than mediocre results may be replaced
by the online virtual classrooms that are already being successfully used in
other countries.
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| graphic from behindcorporatearmour.wordpress.com |
Flexi-time
and Family Time
We understand that the debate in the House on the
proposed Employment (Flexi Work Arrangements) (Miscellaneous Provisions Act),
2014 will take place tomorrow. This is a
burning issue for some churches which observe the Sabbath as a day when no work
should take place.
The proposal is that Sundays and Public Holidays be
treated as regular workdays, and business operators determine their own opening
and closing hours. The act will however stipulate that a workday be capped at
12 hours and that a work week should not exceed 40 hours.
Bear in mind though, that as long as one is
dedicated and efficient, generally employers will show respect for religious
and family obligations. One plant
manager explained that he found workers who were Seventh Day Adventists to be
the most diligent and honest. Their work
ethic inspired their managers to re-arrange schedules so they could be allowed
to observe their Sabbath. Change is difficult but necessary, as we try to boost
our country’s low rate of productivity.
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| From Scammer419.wordpress.com |
Scammers
disgracing Jamaica
The latest news that a popular disc jockey,
Deon-ville O’Hara aka ZJ Wah Wa will be pleading guilty this week in North
Dakota, to charges of conspiracy to commit
mail and wire fraud and money laundering, is disturbing. Apparently, he decided to change his ‘not
guilty’ plea after his four collaborators admitted to the charges.
A total of 16 Jamaicans have been arrested as part
of that ring, and we wonder how these crimes could have been allowed to spread
so far and wide, casting many United States seniors into poverty. In a Jamaica where everybody knows
everybody’s business, this widespread criminal behaviour reeks of greed.
Leaders in all sectors must collaborate in restoring
stronger moral values in our people – we have to find out how these
well-educated scammers lost their way, so we can help others to make better
life choices.
