STUDENTS LEARN as much from what’s implied as from what’s explicitly taught. In many teacher preparation programmes, the concept of the formal and informal curriculum is introduced to emphasise that students learn both through direct instruction...
BUT FOR the fact that he shadows the portfolio for the Opposition, Damion Crawford could be forgiven for being seemingly unaware that the Orlando Patterson report on education transformation was actually tabled in Parliament. Few people in the last...
IN THIS column on August 27, concern was raised about the US military build-up in the Caribbean Sea. The US, we have been told, has declared war on cartels supplying drugs, as it had declared war on foreign terrorists in 2001. In the illegal...
HUNDREDS OF children are punished for neurological differences their schools cannot name. In truth, they are dysregulated, unassessed, and abandoned by a system decades behind the science. That scene is no metaphor; it is daily reality in countless...
The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the global cement manufacturer, Cemex, are obliged to say why the company reported a more than US$200,000 payment to the ruling party then expunged the expenditure in an amended filing to the US Securities...
Two weeks ago, a report from the Integrity Commission (IC) regarding its three-year probe into allegations of procurement irregularities and conflicts of interest regarding the awarding of contracts by the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW) to...
It’s been a while but current media talk about fertility rates stomped on The Old Ball and Chain’s last nerve. So she’s fulminating again. She was listening to a talk shop on morning radio featuring regular radio chatterboxes. They and the host...
It is not clear what the Trinidad and Tobago government intended to signal by reserving its position on America’s naval build-up in the southern Caribbean Sea and Washington’s implicit threat of direct military action against Venezuela. However,...
Last week, an editorial in this paper prescribed how Jamaica could resurrect the prospect of five per cent annual GDP growth. Helpful fiscal measures and issues of social reform were put forward. This is an appropriate effort in the circumstance of...
The former Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs promoted a video which depicted a decorated vehicle proceeding at good speed on a beautiful and smooth highway towards the republican terminal. This image is unrealistic and misleading. The...
The question is no longer about the policy priorities for escaping Jamaica’s low-growth trap – from lowering energy costs, to establishing development corridors and transformational action in education training. The problem is how to get them...
In 1945, following World War II, almost all then-existing states – numbering about 50 – agreed to the terms of the United Nations Charter, a major treaty that remains in force today for all 193 member states of the United Nations. In large part,...
“Your future is connected to the West end.” This is the one thing on which my apocryphal high school principal and I agreed. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, to the Greater Glory of God. The West End is the poor and less powerful; people on the margins,...
I have a lot of respect for and trust in our judicial system and for the judiciary. It, therefore, pains me to express a discordant view on the recent sentencing of 57-year-old Andrew Clarke. Andrew Clarke faked being a duly registered medical...
In an increasingly transactional, materialistic, and individualistic world, the distinction between award and reward has become blurred. Service has been replaced by “what is in it for me” and civil duty by a “payment first mentality” even good...
Now that Sir Patrick Allen is ready to proceed with the instruments of appointment for two critical jobs at the Integrity Commission (IC), the agency can, on its face, proceed with the important work that it was established to do. But, frankly,...
The world has long spoken of a “rules-based order” as though the law itself held dominion over power. Yet, behind the diplomatic courtesies and the fine print of charters, it was power that wrote the rules and altered them at will. The difference...
There was a young woman called Starkie. Who had an affair with a darky. The result of her sins. Was quadruplets, not twins One black and one white and two khaki. Earlier this year, I...
“Slavery is indeed scotched in our colonies, but it is not killed; its name is changed: its character remains to be changed hereafter”. [Special Magistrate Richard Robert Madden MD (1898-1886)]. Monday (October 20)...
Happily, it was all a misunderstanding. Everyone misapprehended Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ intention when he appeared to relegate Opposition Leader Mark Golding, negotiating first with the justice minister, Delroy Chuck, on constitutional...
Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague that forced me to rethink the way I view gender roles especially within the context of a rapidly changing society. He asked me, “If you were married to a man who earns less than you, would you have a...
Despite apparently different perspectives among its members on America’s aggressive naval posture in the southern Caribbean, The Gleaner is surprised that Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders haven’t had formal talks on the situation. But now...
I REMEMBER my high-school history lessons on Haiti. Once proudly declared to be the first black republic and first independent state in the Caribbean, Haiti now owns the unenviable title of being the place where every decade brings a new apocalypse...
This year’s World Food Day marks 80 years since the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), whose mandate from the outset has been to ensure humanity’s freedom from want. Today, around 8.2 per cent of people...
As was implied by his office, this newspaper appreciates that the governor general, Sir Patrick Allen, is not obliged to explain his actions – or inaction – to the public, unless he is specifically required to do so by the Constitution, or some...
