The Ministry of Education, Youth and
Sports recently completed and presented a
ten-year plan for education development in St.
Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The plan has
been a few years in coming and during the process
of its elaboration, consultations were held all
across the country. Thus, the plan is guaranteed
to have wide acceptance especially by teachers
and the other main stakeholders in the education
system.
However, a plan, no matter how good, is worth
little if it is not implemented effectively to
secure its desired outcomes. This implementation
is going to be far more complex and taxing than
putting the plan together.
What is extremely necessary at this point is a
flow of ideas and technical information on which
to build our implementation strategies. Without
these, the outcomes of our efforts at developing
our education system will surely be less than
adequate. In the past, we could have looked for
readymade ideas from abroad but we have made the
decision to fashion our education enterprise to
suit our own peculiar needs. Thus, our
implementation strategies must be informed by our
own thinking and ideas. This immediately raises a problem
because we have very little in the way of
information and ideas on our local situation. Our
educational situation simply does not have a
space where ideas about educational thought and
practice can be generated. Further, there is no
sustained public discourse on the business of
educating.
Therefore there is
an urgent need for technical information in order
to translate our policy into practice. This
information must come from our educational
leaders who are supposed to have that kind of
knowledge and the disposition to use it in this
very important implementation process.
The present volume, Reflections on the
Business of Educating, is an attempt to do
something about the knowledge and information
gap. The term "Educating" is used
instead of "Education" because the
focus is on the teaching-learning situation. The
latter term, because of its abstraction and
generality, does not capture that situation.
The book is a compilation of about 35 short
pieces taken from two main sources: 1) newspaper
articles written over a six to seven year period
up to 2002; and 2) scripts for a radio education
programme that was run on local radio station
between 1997 and 1998.
The contents of the book are presented in their
original form with minimal editing. It is felt
that the "mass media" style of the
newspaper articles and the radio scripts will
appeal to a wide audience. The idea behind this
is to engage the public at large on the issues
contained in the book. The ensuing discussions
will, hopefully, contribute to a greater public
understanding of the business of education. This,
in turn, will translate into meaningful support
for the implementation of the education plan.
The book is divided loosely into three sections:
general issues; gender and education; and
teaching and learning. The pieces falling under
these sections cover a wide range of topics in
the field of education. There are theoretical,
strategic and tactical issues, which will be of
interest and use to educators, teachers, students
and the public at large.
Tips on studying and teaching; ideas about the
nature of subject matter; the role of parents in
the education of their children; male
underachievement; and other such topics are
included. The issues dealt with are not only for
immediate use. Many of them have heuristic value
for research, which is so urgently needed as we
try to come to terms with the business of
educating.
Although the book is mainly intended to support
the local effort, it is felt that the content
will have appeal to a wider regional audience,
especially the other OECS states with whom we are
seeking to harmonise our own education system.
Indeed, the book can be seen as a meaningful
contribution to the OECS Education Reform
Programme.
The book is a representation of the author’s
struggles to put into meaningful perspective his
wide experience in the business of educating. He
sincerely hopes that readers will find it both
useful and pleasant to read.
Winfield Williams B.A., Dip. Ed.,
M.Ed., (UWI), M.Ed. (Alberta)
Centre for the Human Sciences
March 2003
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