I was at the gas station today, and a couple kids on bikes asked me if I "Fix Air" ... they seemed to have a problem with their bike tires ... they were probably like 11/12 years old ... anyway, so I asked them "What?" ... they were like "the sign says you fix air .." ... so I was like "no sorry" ...

meanwhile the sign says "Computer Repair",
in very simple clear writing.

I thought that was kind of sad ... I really wished i could have helped.

I just never realized schools were as bad as that in Nassau .. :dgi:
Certain schools, obviously not all, and I guess the parents aren't helping.

:jawdroop:

vell bup....!

I was at the gas station today, and a couple kids on bikes asked me if I "Fix Air" ... they seemed to have a problem with their bike tires ... they were probably like 11/12 years old ... anyway, so I asked them "What?" ... they were like "the sign says you fix air .." ... so I was like "no sorry" ...

meanwhile the sign says "Computer Repair",
in very simple clear writing.

I thought that was kind of sad ... I really wished i could have helped.

I just never realized schools were as bad as that in Nassau .. :dgi:
Certain schools, obviously not all, and I guess the parents aren't helping.


I met some kids in England like that. They had no clue what anything meant.
Really poor state to be in I must say.

I met some kids in England like that. They had no clue what anything meant.
Really poor state to be in I must say.

Or was it South Africa? :sailing:

Anyway we are in the Bahamas and thats all that matters right now.

Like when I was in the clinic and this dude (maybe late 20s) looked me in the eye and asked me to fill out his form for him because he couldn't read or write.

Could it be that some people havent went to school ever? I remember watching something on cable 12 a year or two ago. The camera crews followed some of the Urban renewal people into one of the inner city communities. On woman had some children there, one of them who were probably old enough to be in grade two or so. I forgot the excuse why she hasnt sent them to school yet. It's possible that in our country, there is still children who are being deprived of education litteraly.

Then there was someone trying to use the atm at the RBC downtown probably over 40. Now the guy in front of me was telling me how he could not read, but I wasn't to sure if he was telling the truth. H e must have been there quite a while because I met him in there and it was 10 minutes before he left someone else use the machine. Then he went back. He said he was trying to pay a bill. I told him you can't do that on the machine, but he still insisted that he could do it.....pressing every button on the machine possible, disregarding the screen. I left him in there for him to finally give up.

A sad fact is that many of these kids that cannot read do in fact attend school. What is worse is that many of them advance from one grade level to the next with this deficiency, leaving highschool only able to scribble their name. Why aren't school and MOE teachers and officials not reconginzing this problem from early on and doing something about? Illiterate kids will grow into illiterate adults if something is not done soon enough to correct their deficiency. Parents especially need to be more viligant of their kids academics, instead of just sending them to school.

We have ALOT of functionally illiterate adults in this country. The only thing they are capable of doing is counting money and signing their name. Many of them cannot read a job application, a contract, fill out a report, etc. Yet many of these same people are employed in many areas of the public and private sector. Scary!!!!

A sad fact is that many of these kids that cannot read do in fact attend school. What is worse is that many of them advance from one grade level to the next with this deficiency, leaving highschool only able to scribble their name. Why aren't school and MOE teachers and officials not reconginzing this problem from early on and doing something about? Illiterate kids will grow into illiterate adults if something is not done soon enough to correct their deficiency. Parents especially need to be more viligant of their kids academics, instead of just sending them to school.
We have ALOT of functionally illiterate adults in this country. The only thing they are capable of doing is counting money and signing their name. Many of them cannot read a job application, a contract, fill out a report, etc. Yet many of these same people are employed in many areas of the public and private sector. Scary!!!!

man I thought this only happened on TV(The Wire- I scared of Bmore)...but its true...social promotion harms more than they think it could every help. look no further than the kids in the back of the classroom sleeping or the troublesome ones making all the rawkus...the thing is too these are some of the best dressed kids...head so empty make you wah cry. Then it could have to do too with their education stunting their education growth (dropping out, early parenthood) so they take on the same value of education as their parents...maybe?

The things we do to keep a school from grossly overcrowding......

Like when I was in the clinic and this dude (maybe late 20s) looked me in the eye and asked me to fill out his form for him because he couldn't read or write.


that happens to me all of the time when flying from north eleuthera into fort lauderdale now ... fifteen minutes out from landing in the states, people much younger than me hand me their immigration cards and tell me that they left their reading glasses at home. (one guy said his pen broke, and just stared at me when i handed him another pen.) i just ask for their passports and visa cards now, and fill out the information, but it makes me very, very said.

that happens to me all of the time when flying from north eleuthera into fort lauderdale now ... fifteen minutes out from landing in the states, people much younger than me hand me their immigration cards and tell me that they left their reading glasses at home. (one guy said his pen broke, and just stared at me when i handed him another pen.) i just ask for their passports and visa cards now, and fill out the information, but it makes me very, very said.

this makes me wonder what were they doing in their youth while growing up on the island? (with relatively nothing to get into) what went wrong? I think the illiteracy rate is higher than is actually reported. is there a literacy center on the island?

yet again people r blaming the schools.

pple can say what they want about gov schools but i am pretty sure those teachers teach their lessons. they might not do it enthusiastically but they do it.

it is up to parents to make sure their kids go to school and do homeowork and make sure their kids are grasping for information and make sure their kids do not have learning disabilities.

parents are the primary key to a childs educational sucess

Or was it South Africa? :sailing:

Anyway we are in the Bahamas and thats all that matters right now.


Illiteracy is a world wide problem. We have to talk about it, because some countries face the same problem. We can learn from the experiences, to make our situation better.

Poor little lads, they could not even read a simple sentence when I showed it to them. It was like, how can you be in England and not be able to read.

Sad indeed. However, the statistics show we are missing one or two...
"Bahamas: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 95.6%
male: 94.7%
female: 96.5% (2003 est.)

UK: definition: age 15 and over has completed five or more years of schooling
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)

US: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)

Barbados: definition: age 15 and over has ever attended school
total population: 99.7%
male: 99.7%
female: 99.7% (2002 est.)

Jamaica: definition: age 15 and over has ever attended school
total population: 87.9%
male: 84.1%
female: 91.6% (2003 est.) "

Cuba: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 97%
male: 97.2%
female: 96.9% (2003 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

(I think the UK's missing 1%, was probably that young man I spoke to:voodoo: )

Out of those six countries, here is a snapshot of the GDP expenditure breakdown for education. Cuba spends 18%; Barbados 8%; Jamaica 6%; US 5%; UK 5%...Bahamas; not even on the list.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdp

Now, if we look out our budget readings for 2003, it said we spend over 190$million on education out of a total gross $1.2 billion revenue. We are not even talking about the grants and what not's, countries give us for education and such. This is just revenue and expenditure, nothing fancy...
http://www.bahamasb2b.com/news/wmprint.php?ArtID=1772

I would assume that in the GDP calculations, spending would be a little less considering the additional, factors involved in the GDP calculations. I won't use Miss Mckenzie's figures, but rather my own. 7.4% +/- a few hundred thousand, on the Ministry of Education and Department of Education combined in 2003. In 2006 it went to 7.6% +/- a few hundred thousand. Over $208 million out of $1.5billion gross revenue.
http://www.bahamas.gov.bs/bahamasweb...100 &Expand=1

Now, I would like to see the literacy rates for 2006. We spend more on Education, and are spending more now than the US and heavily Govt. regulated UK (heavily taxed as well). But not as much as Barbados and Cuba; note the Cuba and Barbados factors are by GDP and not by gross revenue. With that, it would probably be shown, that we spend a whole lot less if we calculate by GDP. Jamaica spends about 6% of GDP, but we all know that Jamaica is dysfunctional.

Now, a few hundred thousand is alot of money and in fact, spending went up by over $30 million since 2003. We need to see that in our results or in how the measure us. We need to since that education symposium about two years back, we need to have at least a full percentage hike.

Education has been a huge slush fund for the past several years, going back to the FNM days. Huge money is spent and wasted. I am not even going to comment on what was under the portfolio of the Ministry of Education in 2003 to what it is now, 2006. I don't have the time, the issue and cabinet shuffle, to me, was just as much about re-assigning debt and hiding gross mis-management. It popped us as soon as Wisdom got to Housing, we found out that Shane had a few questionable fiscal policy descisions. This I think, was across the board and Wisdom, was just too dumb to cover his own tail.

Education is a slush fund, and wasteful spending ont he wrong things. With that, learning disabilities, which can easily account for 1/2% of that missing total percentage, in literacy rates, can easily come under various other governmental responsibilities; Social Services, Health and Culture.

We had a serious problem before the PLP came in, and they did absolute****ingly nothing. If anything, they spent more and got less if you ask me.

That makes me want to shoot the lot of those idiots in the house. They are wasting our money. It could be spent alot better. Considering, we are so close to the US and our education system mirrors the UK's superior system. With that, we only have 300k population. Granted, it is spread over a few chain of islands, but that spending, should penetrate for only 300k, considering we generate alot of money in this country.

Alas, the REAL issues, will not be addressed in the up-comming election.
Sad story indeed.
:mad:

To sumarize; We spend to little on education, and for that matter we have not spent it in the right way.

Not only do we have to up spending, but we have to actually fix the system to get us better results.

We have to wait and see if 2006 literacy figures, go up or down. But, my gawd it should. We throw money at it, my gawd it should get better.

The good news is, we spend a considerable least amount compared to Barbados, Jamaica and Cuba, but we are only 2% points off in literacy.

We can do alot better.