Easter and Education

It is interesting to watch community marathons. In a well-organised marathon, people run together, at different paces, and so arrive at the destination at different times. Yes, there is a winner but, at the same time, there is group solidarity and attentiveness.

Each runner is respected and his/her welfare safeguarded. Fallen runners are attended to quickly; the slowest person is waited on and the marathon is not finished until the last runner arrives. As the popular proverb says: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.’

In this Sunday’s gospel a moral etiquette is at work. Peter and the beloved disciple are “running together”, but the younger one arrives at the empty tomb first. He does not go in but waits on Peter. After Peter arrives and goes into the tomb, the beloved disciple does likewise.

This waiting on the other is a crucial aspect of the synodal journey which requires us to “journey together”. The Christian journey is marked by a unique solidarity that is at the heart of the Easter message: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32).

This solidarity and attentiveness were surely absent in a recent scathing World Bank report on education in the Caribbean. Lilia Burunciuc, the World Bank’s Country Director for Caribbean countries, writes:

“Only 4.9 percent of students—close to 200,000 students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams—passed five or more subjects, including Mathematics and English … Adding to the challenge is the persistent issue of inequality in access to quality education. Many students attend schools that are under-resourced and face challenges such as overcrowding, underqualified or demotivated teachers, and often, significant levels of violence.”

Raise the bar

The Easter message impels us to work towards ridding our Caribbean region of this glaring injustice. We need to start with our Catholic schools, but here we face a conundrum. Many insist this education debacle cannot be overcome unless parents are on board regarding the seriousness of their children’s education. Others say it lies more with the teacher.

Many homes are low-income, parents often not working or holding down two and three jobs just to take care of their families, leaving them with little time for educational supervision.

If the school cannot do it, then children are destined to be part of a poorly educated workforce or will drop out of school, leaving them as fodder for the gangs.

Whatever position is held, we need to raise the bar on education and get many more of our best minds in the teaching profession, people well-grounded in education, with excellent skills in leadership and management, and firmly rooted in their faith.

We must also deliberately seek out some of the best male minds to challenge our young men and help shape their understanding of Caribbean masculinity. This is urgently needed in a teaching profession that is overwhelmingly female.

Our task is an uphill one but not an unsurmountable one. It is not a time for panic but a time to create hope, as we did with SERVOL.

If we are really to be seen as ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ we must fix education.