by Rick Lowe

Ralph Massey has been researching education in The Bahamas for some five years now, and on Wednesday evening, under the auspices of The Nassau Institute, he presented a summary of the information contained in his new 20 plus page booklet that was just released.

While he did not dwell on past mistakes, he offered lots of food for thought on ideas to help improve things.

Click here… for an electronic (pdf) copy from The Nassau Institute web site.

Although there was quite a good audience, not one politician chose to attend – either FNM or PLP.

At the end of the day it is our children that are suffering from a system that is simply not working.

You and I, my fellow blogsters will be dead and gone, but our children will be in a precarious situation because of what we will leave behind with so many people being functionally illiterate.

With all the good intentions of the senior technical officers at the education department and our politicians, we all know it's not working.

Regretfully the lone officer from the education department that came must have felt uncomfortable as he attempted defend the indefensible. One would think the education officials and politicians of all stripes would at least invite Mr. Massey in to speak with him to see if they can gain some insight into ideas for possible improvement.

Maybe they won't do that because he is a foreigner, yet he has spent more time on this subject than those of us that say we are proud to be Bahamian.

What is it about us that we can't at least respect the sincere effort of other people?

As one colleague put it: "Only “lip service” is/will be paid to the work and ideas of non-governmental persons."

Our children deserve better.