An Open Letter to Matthew Farley And Other School Principals

Dear Brother Farley

Your column in the Sunday Sun newspaper entitled "Lessons For The PEP" caused our ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ some concern, because you sought to portray our party as being hostile to the Principals of the secondary schools of Barbados.
Furthermore, you were so intent on publicly talking down to us and teaching us "a lesson" that you were guilty of obfuscating the simple and concrete proposal that we have put forward for reforming and improving the Barbados educational system.
Our proposal was made against the background of an educational system marred by a growing incidence of indiscipline and homosexuality, and characterised by pedagogical deficiencies that are reflected in the fact that some 50 per cent of our students leave secondary school without a single certificate to their name.
We have therefore called for an emergency rescue plan centred around the role of the school principal as the key leader responsible for ensuring the success of his or her school.
Conscious of the fact that we are in recessionary times and that resources are relatively scarce, we proposed that the rescue plan be implemented on an incremental basis, with no more than two secondary schools being tackled each year. At this pace, the entire public secondary school system would be over-hauled in one decade, with the more obviously failing schools being dealt with first.
We have encouraged the Ministry of Education to begin immediately by identifying the two worst performing secondary schools, based on criteria relating to academic success, student discipline and moral standards. (Of course, in measuring academic success one would have to factor in the academic proficiency of the students each school receives in the first form.)
The Principals of these two schools would then be invited to move with haste to draft a practical and comprehensive rescue plan for their schools, and to provide the Ministry of Education with a list of all the inputs and resources that they will need in order to commence the implementation of the rescue plans at the start of the new school year in September 2010.
We envisaged that these Principals would decide that they needed to reduce the size of their classes, and to increase the number of teachers on staff, so that students could receive more individual attention. We also envisaged the Principals requesting specialist remedial education teachers, additional guidance counsellors, and perhaps even the attachment of social workers and child psychologists to the schools.
The provision of these types of resources for two secondary schools is not beyond the capacity of the Barbados government even in this recessionary period!
In fact there are several ways in which these resources can be provided at minimal cost. For example, in order to accommodate smaller class sizes, new class rooms could be built during the long summer vacation, utilising relatively cheap pre-fabricated material or simple ply-wood. In addition, retired teachers can be placed on part time contracts and deployed in the targeted schools.
The Ministry of Education would therefore give the two school Principals all that they ask for, but would also inform them that they will be held accountable for the production of positive results, after a three year period.
If, after three years of the most complete cooperation and assistance on the part of the Ministry, a Principal is still not able to arrest the rot in his or her school, then that Principal should be relieved of his or her duty, and some-one else given the opportunity to accomplish the mission.
This proposal, dear Brother Farley, is not a "broadside" against or an attack on Principals! In fact, the PEP is fully cognisant of the very difficult task that our school administrators have on their hands, and that is why we are constantly searching for ways in which we can assist in the education and development of the young people of Barbados.

SAVE OUR YOUTH FROM HYPOCRISY IN HIGH PLACES!

Two years ago, then Opposition Leader, David Thompson, along with then Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, and their two political parties, inundated Barbados with a flood of Jamaican dance hall and dub artistes! They did so in a calculated effort to pander to and to win the votes of our Barbadian young people in the 2008 General Elections.
Rather than seeking to encourage our youth to engage in serious thinking and discussion about the critical issues facing our nation during the General Election campaign, Messers Thompson and Arthur, and their two political parties, sought to distract and entertain our young people with imported dub singers from Jamaica! Indeed, in the days leading up to the January 2008 poll all we could hear about were DLP and BLP music based rallies for the young people of Barbados.
Just imagine, during the last General Elections, these two leaders and their two political parties, claimed that that they could not find the time or resources to arrange even one televised political debate, yet they had no difficulty finding time or resources to import numerous Jamaican and Trinidadian entertainers into Barbados for the titillation of our youth!
Now, two years later, Mr Thompson and other members of the political class are self-righteously getting up on their moralistic soap boxes and denouncing our youth for having made questionable Jamaican entertainers into their role models.
And in an exhibition of high class comedy these shallow national leaders permitted Mavado and Vybz Kartel to come to Barbados and performed during the period of time that these two artistes were involved in a violent feud and were releasing offensive, violence filled songs, but have chosen to ban them now that they have ended the feud and have allegedly committed themselves to promoting positive and peaceful messages!
How therefore can one quarrel with our young people when they contemptuously dismiss the adult leaders of our society as a bunch of hypocrites?
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) is sick and tired of all of this exaggerated and constant denunciation of the young people of Barbados! If you listen to the mainstream political, religious and social leaders of Barbados, one would think that the young people of Barbados are the most degraded and delinquent creatures on the face of the earth, and the most inferior generation of Barbadians!
Yet, there is so such evidence around us of positive, disciplined, talented and well behaved young Barbadians. Indeed, this generation of young Barbadians is achieving at the international level in phenomenal ways that previous generations could not even dream about! In a world that is infinitely more complicated and stress filled than the world of the 1950's and 60's, we witness numerous Barbadian teenagers and young adults routinely managing daily schedules made up of a multiplicity of activities and developing into well rounded, multi-skilled citizens.
Of course there are also many young people who have fallen short of the mark, but let us be balanced in our criticism, and acknowledge that the good among our youth significantly outweighs the bad.
Let us also recognise that the world is in an era in which degraded forms of culture are being foisted on societies all over the world. And in the face of this enormous challenge, our Barbadian young people have done and continue to do remarkably well.
And let us also not fail to recognise the many ways in which the adult society has failed and continues to fail out youth. For example, Barbadian politicians who buy votes in elections and who set out to systematically reduce our young people to insensible, materialistic beings who only respond to the bribery of money and entertainment!
So too the case with Barbadian pastors and priests who dilute the spirituality of the nation with their morally bankrupt, money based "Prosperity Gospel", or with their sterile, establishment oriented Christianity. And businessmen and women who view our youth as merely a captive commercial market to be exploited and plundered, and act in accordance with that vulgar conception.
Please let us stop the hypocrisy and this exaggerated denunciation of our youth.

THE P S V TRAGEDY

Mr Morris Lee, President of the ‘Association of Public Transport Operators’ (APTO) has declared that Barbados’ public service vehicle industry is in a state of "crisis", while Ms Judy Forde, Vice President of APTO is lamenting that the current governmental administration has shown no interest in even having a meeting to discuss the many critical issues facing the industry!
None of this surprises us in the ‘Peoples Empowerment Party’ (PEP)! The sad reality is that the established black political class of Barbados is dominated by persons who exhibit deeply rooted psychological deformities that have seemingly rendered them incapable of reaching out to and supporting and nurturing aspiring black Barbadian businesspeople.
The PEP states, without fear of contradiction, that no group of white, Indian or Syrian business people in Barbados would have any problem whatsoever in securing a meeting with Government to discuss their problems. But the vast majority of public service vehicle operators are native black Barbadians, and are therefore not so fortunate!
Our party invites Mr Lee, Ms Forde and the thousands of public service vehicle owners and operators to take careful note of the PEP’s policy on the public service vehicle industry, as expressed in our 2008 General Election Manifesto:-
"Rather than continuing to treat public service vehicle operators as renegades and criminals, we will work with them, and hold out the promise of bringing dignity, commercial success, professionalism and respectability to this largely black owned business sector. PSV drivers and conductors will be given special training and certification; their bus stands will be upgraded and transformed into places of dignity and comfort; and the punitive taxes and other impositions will be removed."
When the PEP published that policy in our Manifesto we were not engaging in facile electioneering; we were not making insincere promises for the purpose of attracting a few votes. On the contrary, we meant exactly what we said! Indeed, that policy is the natural product of a general philosophy of society and governance which we adhere to in the PEP!
As far as we are concerned, in a society that experienced 330 years of anti-black slavery and serfdom, and the associated use of the instruments of state power to restrict the development of blacks, a popularly elected, democratic government has a duty to use the power of government to secure the advancement and commercial success of legitimate aspiring small black entrepreneurs!
Historically, one of the few areas of the commercial life of Barbados that ‘blacks’ were able to take control of, was the sphere of public transportation. It should therefore have been clear to successive Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and Democratic Labour Party (DLP) governments that this was an ideal sector to target for development and upliftment.
Successive BLP and DLP administrations should have focussed on making the public transportation sector a towering and shining example of ‘black’ professionalism and business success!
They should have set about to "professionalize" the industry by putting in place compulsory state run training and certification programmes for the drivers and conductors of public service vehicles. On a daily basis, public service vehicle operators are responsible for the lives and well being of hundreds of human beings. These operators are therefore entrusted with extremely important and responsible functions, and should be trained appropriately. Furthermore, the professional certification they receive in Barbados should be of such a standard that it would be recognised and accepted internationally.
In addition, successive administrators should have virtually guaranteed the commercial success of these aspiring entrepreneurs by keeping taxes and duties to levels that are low enough to ensure commercial viability! Instead, our governments, have done the very opposite by punishing PSV owners with excessive taxes and duties!
Our political misleaders have taken a sector that had the potential to make an extremely positive and invaluable contribution to Barbadian society, and have turned it into an arena of decadence and outlawry. Truly, where there is no vision the people perish!

ADVICE FOR THE PRIME MINISTER

One year ago, Prime Minister Thompson produced a Budget which, according to him, was based on the fundamental premise that the world would come out of recession in 2010, and that the Barbadian economy would once again be lifted by a growing international economy.
The Peoples Empowerment Party (PEP) responded almost immediately, and in our Nation Newspaper column of June 5, 2009 we stated as follows:-
"The PEP wishes to publicly let Mr Thompson know that he is living in a ‘fool’s paradise’! The harsh reality is that there will be no international recovery in the year 2010, or indeed for several years to come. The damage done to the international financial system and to structures of physical production all over the world is too massive for there to be any short term recovery. Thus, to base Barbados’ fiscal and developmental policies on the expectation that such a recovery will occur next year, is to be guilty of gross negligence in the management of our national affairs".
Well, we are now into the year 2010 and once again the PEP has been proven right! A couple weeks ago Mr Thompson’s Ministry of Finance issued a "Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy" report in which they were forced to admit that Government’s tax revenues had declined by a whopping 9.6 per cent during the first nine months of fiscal year 2009/10, producing a massive fiscal deficit of $480.9 million!
So, having based his fiscal policies on a false premise one year ago, Mr Thompson now finds himself in a serious crisis and is desperately thrashing around in search of a way out of the hole he has dug for himself.
We will have to wait on the Budget to hear precisely what new economic policies Mr Thompson is proposing, but one of the measures he has already taken is to bring three new Democratic Labour Party (DLP) journeymen into his Administration. Mr Thompson has now made history by putting together the largest conglomeration of Government ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the history of Barbados - up from 18 to a truly massive 21 in number!
But why does Mr Thompson need to burden the already hard pressed taxpayers of Barbados with the heavy load of salaries and "perks" for 21 Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries? The greatest and most productive DLP cabinet was Mr Errol Barrow’s cabinet of 1961 to 1966 - a cabinet of seven ministers. Mr Thompson now has three times that number!
But aside from the matter of quantity, the PEP is definitely not impressed with the quality of Mr Thompson’s Cabinet! With Barbados in one of its most desperate economic crises, how does it serve our country to pack the Administration with additional nondescript DLP foot soldiers?
Time and time again the PEP has warned that Barbados needs a genuine ‘politics of inclusion’ to steer us out of this crisis. We are convinced that our country does possess the intellectual resources required to meet the challenges that now confront us, but those resources reside, only to a limited degree, in the Democratic Labour Party! It is therefore imperative that we develop the political maturity and the sense of patriotism that will permit us to search for and pull together executive talent from outside the confines of our own narrow political tribe. This is a warning that Mr Thompson continues to ignore to his and Barbados’ peril!
The PEP also continues to advise that a new world economic order is going to emerge from the current crisis, and that the most appropriate long term strategy for Barbados is to assume the role of chief conceptualiser and architect of a Pan-Caribbean economy and system of production, inclusive of the large populations of the Caribbean Diaspora in North America and Europe.

The Caribbean nation and civilization is our future. It is, perhaps, the only acceptable future that is available to us. Once again, we advise Mr Thompson to take the first decisive steps now, on the journey to that future.

DAVID A. COMISSIONG

THE GREAT IMMIGRATION HOAX!

In this era of recession, economic contraction and deflation, what the Barbados economy most desperately needs is a concrete and practical strategy for economic growth. And it is clear that the most likely arena in which Barbados can pursue such a growth strategy is in relation to the pan-Caribbean market and economy. Yet, this is precisely the time that the myopic Government of Barbados has chosen to turn its back on the Caribbean, to engage in an anti-CARICOM immigration policy, and to evict hundreds of hard working and productive workers and consumers from Barbados!
At present, the Immigration Department of Barbados is pursuing the most rigid and heartless policy against undocumented CARICOM migrants, and is routinely rejecting the applications of virtually all CARICOM migrants who have applied for Immigrant Status.
Just last year, the Prime Minister gave undocumented CARICOM migrants who came to Barbados after the 1st of January 1998, the assurance that if they filed applications for Immigrant Status that they would be treated fairly and every application would be judged on its individual merit.
Well, it is said that "a promise is a comfort to a fool” and our Immigration Department is in the process of turning the hundreds of CARICOM citizens who took the Prime Minister at his word into fools. The harsh reality is that the applications are not being judged on merit, and that the Immigration Department is simply rejecting the applications out of hand.
This is resulting in persons who have been living in Barbados for as long as eleven years, and who are gainfully employed and have children who were born in Barbados, being ordered to pack up their children and leave this country! How any of this is helping Barbados only God knows!
It seems as though the members of the present Administration have some-how gotten it into their heads that they can alleviate Barbados’ economic woes by expelling the so-called undocumented Caribbean "foreigners" among us. They seem to believe that the best way to solve the unemployment problem and to deal with the fiscal dilemma is to evict Caribbean "foreigners" who work in Barbados and access education, health care and housing.
Indeed, they seem to be so enamoured of this anti-CARICOM migrant strategy that they have even drawn up a "Green Paper" on Immigration Reform, in which they are proposing to alter the Barbados Constitution in order to deny citizenship to the children of certain categories of migrants who are born in Barbados, and to the spouses of native born Barbadians.
All of this constitutes a foolish and unintellectual approach to economic management, and a tragic repudiation of Barbados’ shining and unrivalled reputation as a leader in the Caribbean integration movement
Economic development is not a ‘zero sum game’ in which in order for one person to gain a job, another person must necessarily lose a job! Indeed, the typical scenario is that migrants enter the work force and help to grow the economy, to increase the ‘Gross Domestic Product’, and to play a catalytic role in the multiplication of job opportunities.
It is not surprising therefore that the period of the greatest influx of CARICOM migrants to Barbados was the period of Barbados’ most robust economic growth, and the era in which unemployment sunk to its lowest level in the history of Barbados.
It is not surprising either that with the continuing departure of hundreds of CARICOM migrants that a large number of Barbadian shops, small supermarkets, landlords and private schools are beginning to feel the pinch and have started to suffer from a significant loss of business.
Simply put, our anti-CARICOM migrant policy is causing a further contraction or deflation in the Barbados economy, at a time when what we desperately need are anti-deflation, pro-growth policies! Thus, the Government is going in the wrong direction, and is doing far more harm than good to the Barbadian economy and society
Our anti-CARICOM immigration policies are also going to make it much more difficult for Barbados to reach out to and engage with other Caribbean countries in a pro-growth regional economic strategy from which Barbados will derive the lion’s share of benefits.
As our government continues to paint Barbados into a small, isolated anti-CARICOM corner, the government of Trinidad & Tobago continues to reach out to its Eastern Caribbean neighbours, and to pursue a pro-Caribbean migrant strategy that may eventually lead to a lock in of the Eastern Caribbean economies with Trinidad & Tobago. Barbados could very well find itself on the outside looking in.

Truly, where there is no vision the people perish!

DAVID A. COMISSIONG