A sad day for education - Former DPP slams school’s graduation separation

Former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn has described as “a sad day for education,” reports on Saturday that a primary school in Portmore, St Catherine, was separating its graduation class based on the students’ performance.

Llewellyn did not mention the school by name, but it had been reported on Saturday in The Jamaica Observer that Ascot Primary School in Portmore, St Catherine, had separated its graduating class with only the top achievers allowed to wear caps and gowns at the graduation ceremony, leading to a protest by some parents.

Since then, the Ministry of Education has responded to the issue, condemning the action of the school administration, describing it as contrary to, and inconsistent with, the standards of care for children, especially those at ages 11 and 12.

Speaking during the graduation ceremony at Prospect College in St Mary on Saturday, Llewellyn said her first response to reading the article was saying to herself, “How sad.”

“If the reporting is correct, the teachers there, or the authorities, were breaching the particular duty and the responsibility they have as a teacher, which is to ensure, as an educator, that you foster intellectual and personal well-being of students, helping them to learn and apply critical thinking; a lot of what you do as an educator, as a teacher, is to help students acquire the knowledge, competencies of values,” Llewellyn said.

The former top prosecutor said the article brought to mind the George Orwell-penned idea from Animal Farm that “All of us are equal, but some are more equal than others”.

“Now if this particular school is not careful they are going to be putting these children on a path which is negative. You’re supposed to be building up the child, their ability to self-actualise and self-motivate. You are putting them on a path [forward], irrespective of whether they got a hundred or they just got above the pass mark, or even if they didn’t get the pass mark.”

Llewellyn continued: “When this school, if the report is correct, sets up these artificial distinctions, it is a sad day for education and I really hope they come out with a clarification, or if it really so, that this happened, an apology and a promise that this sort of alienation will never happen again. Every single child is valuable, irrespective of their background, station in life, ethnicity, colour, or mental capability or capacity; every single child is valuable; and the purpose of a teacher is to bring out the best that you can in every single child.” 

carl.gilchrist@gleanerjm.com