Listen to the audio blog here: https://youtu.be/FEOh4woYPuA
Did you know that it takes 8 months to train to become a police constable? 8 months — let that sink in. Maybe you can’t see the value of that information right now but you will.
“But I thought this blog was about education, not police,” you say. Don’t worry. We’re getting there.
It is said that what you put in is what you get out and from whom much is given, much is expected. How much do you think is really given to teachers? No, we’re not talking about salary (yet). I mean, how much is invested in teachers, especially compared to other professionals?
Teachers, police officers, doctors, nurses and lawyers are traditionally known as the backbone of society. As a unit, we protect, we educate, we inspire, we serve, we defend, we heal and we care. In theory, these professionals hold an entire society together. However, if you see enough of life, you will realise that there is a hierarchy within the backbone. Some careers get more funding, more education, more pay, better infrastructure, more resources, more status and more perks than others. This inequality is systemic. It starts long before one even enters the profession.
I got a 3-year Bachelor’s degree in Language Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona. I studied on a full scholarship that covered tuition for any field of study I chose to pursue plus maintenance money for housing, food and books — a great deal! When the lady at the scholarship desk asked me what I was studying, I told her I was studying education.
She then proceeded, “What do you really want to study?”
“Education,” I said, bemused.
“Are you sure?” she said, looking intently into my eyes.
I caught the drift. I replied, “Yes” like someone who had just been asked to swear on the Bible that I would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
She said, “OK” with a hint of resignation and proceeded to guide me through the rest of the paperwork.
How strange, she must have thought. I was getting a clean break — a full scholarship to study anything I wanted to study, no matter the cost and I chose to stick with education? I had all the qualifications to study Law. Why condemn myself to education?
I was likely the only person in my class who chose to be there, the only person who chose teaching above all others.
This woman, like many, likely believed, as I once did, that bright people don’t teach. Why would you take the talents you have been given to box yourself into a profession that is highly stressful and will ultimately condemn you to poverty? For many privileged or intellectual people, education is the charity work that you do after you have established yourself in your 6-figure career, just to “give back to your community.”
I came to fully appreciate the low value placed on education when I was studying to become a teacher. Many of my classmates were only in the School of Education because they were rejected from other schools, other degree programmes, other lives that would have been more glamorous and more meaningful to them. Others deflected to education because it was the cheapest course of study. Some saw it as “stable” and “secure” so highly likely that they would matriculate from university into a real paying job. Still others were afraid to pursue more “ambitious” and challenging fields. One classmate waited desperately all throughout her degree programme to be accepted to law. Some were only studying education as they figured out what their next move was—what their real career would be. I was likely the only person in my class who chose to be there, the only person who chose teaching above all others.
What does any of this have to do with my opening statement? Well, let’s look at it again: it takes 8 months to train to be a police constable. That’s 8 months to learn to protect and serve, 8 months to become an upholder of law and order, 8 months to hold a gun. 8 months. Now, let’s compare. It takes 3-4 years to become a trained graduate teacher. That seems like a reasonable time — your standard 3 to 4 year degree. You can also become a trained teacher with a simple teaching diploma that takes about a year and a half — significantly shorter. Some teachers even start teaching straight out of high school. Now, let’s compare again. Let’s compare the time it takes to become a teacher with the time it takes to advance to the other “noble” backbone professions of our society. How long does it take to become a lawyer? Well, in Jamaica, you complete a 3-4 year degree programme and graduate with a Bachelor’s of Law (LLB.) However, at that point, you are not yet fit for duty. You are not competent to practise in this most esteemed field of work. Now, you have to spend another two years in law school and then be called to the prestigious and ethereal bar before you can tote the title of attorney-at-law. There is a similar track towards becoming a doctor. You graduate with a degree in medicine after 5 years. However, you have to work your way up to being a consultant physician through internship and residency. Basically, your degree is just the beginning. As a healer, saviour and preserver of lives, you must keep training. You are held to a different standard, a different kind of bar.
What am I saying? Well, here’s what I’m not saying. I’m not saying training for teaching, policing and nursing need to become as rigorous or expensive as medicine and law. What I’m saying is: don’t you think there is a correlation between investment and returns? Don’t you think that all the investment of time, training, money, respect and infrastructure that goes into training doctors and lawyers is what has led to the robustness of the medical and legal professions in Jamaica and to the numbers of brilliant students flocking towards these fields each year? Conversely, do we really believe that students are going to flock to education as a profession or that we will maintain a picking of high-quality educators without that same investment of time, training, money, respect and infrastructure? And if the students who do enter the profession are mostly there because of the low standards of entry, low cost and low investment of time, relative to other “noble” professions, then who is really there for the love? The minority. And if the minority of students enter the field of education for the love and passion while the majority enter out of convenience, then what quality of teachers are we really graduating and how can our education system ever be any better than it is?
Don’t you think there is a correlation between investment and returns?
Let’s jump across the world to Finland. There has been a lot of hype over the past few years about education in Scandinavian countries. Some of it is on-point and well-deserved; other times, things are lauded and compared without context. However, the merit of the Scandinavian way of doing things cannot be denied. One thing about the system in Finland that impressed me was the fact that almost all teachers are required to study for 5 years and hold a Masters degree before they can enter the profession and only the top percentile of high school graduates are accepted to train to become teachers. While I don’t believe we should or can adopt this practice wholesale in a developing country, I do believe it says something about the value these people place on even basic education and the depth of understanding they possess about how systems feed into each other both from the top down and from the bottom up. I mean, if you can’t get a job as a lawyer or doctor without at least five years of schooling but you can get a job as a teacher with three years of schooling or sometimes even no tertiary education at all, what does that say about what an educator is worth? The message this conveys is: anybody can teach. In the same way, if someone just wants a career — any career — and they want it fast plus they’re short on resources and time, they can just become a police in 8 months for a small fee. Couldn’t a man with ulterior motives just figure that 8 months is only a small fraction of his life to sacrifice to get his hands on a gun and some police connections? So what is the true value of “protect and serve”? I’m not saying that teaching or that every essential service job requires five years of training and a Masters degree but the disparity between the time and resources allocated to train different public servants speaks volumes about how each profession is viewed.
On the matter of resources allocated, there is no question about the value placed on law and medicine in Jamaica when you look at the state-of-the art medical school on the University of the West Indies campus, flanked in sophistication only by the faculty of law and the post graduate school of law. Both these facilities come equipped with their own libraries for students while the rest of the students on campus share one central library facility. Naturally, with all that is invested into these students, the students themselves must invest much as well. Students and their families invest volumes of work, rigorous studying and loads of money into a legal or medical education. On the topic of tuition, medical students, by my last inquiry, were spending approximately 2.8 million Jamaican dollars (USD $19,000) on tuition each year. My tuition (about 0.5 million JMD or USD $3,400 per year) as a student in the School of Education at UWI did not total anywhere near that for the three years combined!
The fees, the duration of the programmes, the rigorous studying and the sleepless nights are prohibitive measures that have, no doubt, served over the years, to weed out potential doctors and lawyers who simply were not fit for the job, didn’t have the mettle to endure the profession, and had no real passion for the all-important work that would lie before them. They couldn’t stay the course and in some (not all) of those cases, maybe the nation was better off for it. So while such a capitalist system is fraught with challenges, there is some merit to it as well. So where are the prohibitive measures to weed out the potential teachers who are no good for our children, who have no passion or interest in children or education or who are simply unfit for the job? Where are the prohibitive measures to weed out the potentially corrupt cops or the ones who are unfit? People complain about teachers and police in a way that they do not chide doctors and lawyers. Sure, they get their own flack but it’s different. Everyone, from young children to even the very government, often has negative remarks to make about the work of teachers in particular.
“Not conscientious enough”
“Waste of tax-payers’ money”
“Lazy”
“Unproductive”
“Lacking in integrity”
“Underqualified”
“Unqualified”
Some of these remarks are unfair but some are very true in the case of some teachers and they are true for a reason. They are true because, if the standard for entering and staying in this profession continues to lie so low, then how can the quality of the profession ever hope to improve?
And now, for the most obvious comparison: the perks. Doctors and lawyers tote well-respected titles and many carry a trail of letters behind their names like ants marching to a nesting hole. They are well-paid comparative to the other “noble” professions (though some may say they are still paid less than they deserve). They are aspirational careers, viewed with awe by children and adults alike. From the very first year of the medical degree, the doctors-to-be are invited to a prestigious pinning ceremony, where their enviable white coats are tagged with a gold pin with their names on them. The law students too dress professionally for law school, dragging pulleys filled with books, a symbol of the stature they have and are yet to attain. Essential workers like teachers and policemen often receive more criticism than respect. The greatest disrespect is the salary they are paid. The only workers in education who receive a salary and benefits nearly commensurate with the volume of work they do are principals and vice principals and, let’s face it, there are only so many of those positions to go around. There are few titles and letters behind their names to speak of.
Realistically, if these professions, though noble, carry so few benefits for almost equal work load in some cases, what is going to pull enthusiastic qualified young people to join and remain in these ranks? And if enthusiastic qualified young people are not entering the profession, then who is? And what does that spell for the fate of the profession and the people, particularly the children, that it serves? And if children are not being adequately educated by enthusiastic qualified professionals, then what of our future as a people?
Of course, this issue is complex and deeply rooted in history. Thus, the solutions will be deeply rooted in the future. However, it can start with a few simple steps:
(1) Train teachers better — increase the rigour and depth of teacher training to market it as a career that is not just a walk-over or a last resort career scheme but a career that requires dedication and passion
(2) Pay teachers better — once the qualifications of teachers increase, it should be a no-brainer that their pay can and should increase
(3) Train teaching assistants — just about every one of these backbone professions has ranks to climb and people to assist with a lot of the grunt work until it’s their time to climb the ladder and continue the cycle. Doctors have interns and nurses to help. Lawyers have paralegals and associates. Even the police field has ranks. However, a teacher can stay doing the same scut work from the time she enters into the profession until retirement and even teachers in administrative positions like supervisors or even vice principals still do the same entry-level work to some degree, though their load may be reduced in this regard. A career with such limited upward mobility is not very encouraging and if good teachers can’t get promoted in teaching, they’ll promote themselves out of teaching. High levels of attrition by design!
(4) Provide better resources for teachers — OK, I’m just talking from my own experience but, to be fair, doctors, teachers, nurses, police, all of us as government workers could use better resources! Period!
An educated work force is our most valuable asset but it all starts with passionate, qualified and well-respected teachers. So let’s put some respect on that name!
Sure, adding more value to education might deter some people from entering the field and you may be saying, “But we need more teachers, not less!” But law and medicine, with their high standards, rigorous training programmes and high fees are doing just fine and churning out high-quality results.
Let us not fear the future! Let’s add value to education and put in the work from the ground up!
Thoughts? Please share them in the comments or email me at misseducationja@gmail.com.
Miss Education JA 