Education, health: JLP outscores PNP

The Government's decision to offer free tuition at the secondary level, plus other changes implemented in the education system over the past four years, has started to pay off in the polls.

The Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has now overtaken the previous People's National Party (PNP) government as the administration Jamaicans believe has done a better job with education.

Golding and his team have also extended their lead over the PNP as the administration Jamaicans believe has done a better job with health care.

That's the finding of the latest Gleaner -commissioned Bill Johnson poll. The poll, with a sample size of 1,008, was conducted from May 28 to 29 and June 4 to 5, and has a margin of error of plus or minus four per cent.

45% say better job

Johnson and his team found that 45 per cent of Jamaicans believe the JLP government, with Education Minister Andrew Holness as the driving force, is doing a better job at handling education than the PNP did.

That put the JLP nine percentage points above the PNP which 36 per cent of the respondents said had done a better job with education. Nineteen per cent of Jamaicans said they did not know which of the parties has done a better job.

The latest poll finding represents a major turnaround from April last year when the PNP was head and shoulders above the JLP.

When Johnson and his team had tested the pulse of Jamaica a year ago, 46 per cent of respondents had said the PNP had done a better job with education, while 37 per cent said the JLP.

Since then, the tide has shifted sharply with the JLP numbers improving by eight percentage points and the PNP's numbers declining by 10 percentage points.

Johnson and his team did not test the reason for this change but it is believed that improved grades in a number of subjects, including mathematics and English language, in the Caribbean Examinations Council last year, plus an upward trend in the performance of primary school students in the Grade Six Achievement Test would have boosted the ranking of the present education minister and his team.

Shares credit

However, Holness is not taking all the credit for what he describes as a work in progress.

"Education policy needs continuity. Planning cannot be done in five-year cycles.

BOOK REVIEW : Kaieteur News

PART ONE

Akima McPherson is a lecturer (on leave) in the Department of Language and Cultural Studies, School of Education and Humanities, University of Guyana (UG) and a practicing artist.  She graduated from the University of Guyana with the BA degree in Fine Art (Distinction), 2001 and is currently pursuing the MA degree in Fine Art studies in the United Kingdom.

Dubious as that is, it may simply be a constraint of space and budget.  Of note, it is only when we reach 1987 that we begin to get occasions of ‘overlap,’ when multiple works and artists are presented for particular years.  Hence, for 1987 we are introduced to Francisco Cabral (Trinidad) and to Wendy Nanan (also of Trinidad), then in 1993 to Bernadette Persaud (Guyana) and to Norma Rodney Harrack (Jamaica).  In this way, we are able to make more effective comparisons between what emerged within territories. The collection comprises works from artists across the region that are (or are proving themselves to be) significant to the art history of their country.