7 News Belize

Bringing Equity To Education
posted (May 11, 2010)
It's education week and today the minister of education appointed a 16 member task force to look at the the Reform of Secondary School Financing and Curriculum. Now you may be saying, "wha, another task force?" But this one has a serious job and the decisions it makes could affect the kind of high school education your child receives.

First, it is a task force produced of dire need because despite increases in education spending, during 2001 to 2006, despite increases in funding, only about 40% of children of age are enrolled in high school. And rich schools with diverse curricula get about 60 to 70 dollars per student in funding, while poor schools get about 30 dollars per. To bring equity to this playing field is about as serious a mission as there is in education and the chief education office underscored the urgency.

Chris Aird, Chief Education Officer
"We know two things: One, there is no equity in the distribution of public funds in secondary education; two. we have not made much progress in catering to the thousands of students within the secondary school age range, who are still not in secondary school. "

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"The wealthiest 20 percent of the population had a net enrollment of 2.2 times higher than the poorest 20 percent of the population. The poorest were least likely to complete secondary education compared to the wealthiest 4.7 percent. Compared to 40.4 percent respectively is an eight fold difference. This difference is even more dramatic considering that the wealthiest spend 40 percent more per student on education than the poorest do. Considering public and private expenditure together, students from the wealthiest family receive significantly more per student than the poorest. I realized that immediately, conclusions will be drawn about which schools are benefitting and which are not under this current system. Let me caution you that the picture is not as black and white as you may think or as it appears.

What we proposed is not about schools, but about students getting a fair share of the public expenditure no matter in which school they are. Are we funding a more expensive status quo? The analysis presented strongly suggests the latter rather than the former but more significantly the issues that confront us are a matter of social justice. For years we have tried the same old remedies with the same results. Yet for years in our more candid moments when we are being most honest with ourselves. We have known that the same old remedies, the same old practices do not work and cannot work."

Jules Vasquez
"Isn't this an inherently, intrinsically skewed system, that in order to correct it you have to tick a lot of people off?"

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"In a sense yes, as I have said to people that the kind of disgruntlement you had with the education act, the teaching services commission and the removal of corporal punishment we believe will be very small in comparison to what will happen because feathers will be ruffled under this system of change. But this is exactly why we've put together the task force, but when it comes down to actually implementing it and how it will affect particular schools, there will be some screams and cries."

The task force held its first meeting today.

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