SEA humanitarianism

Prof Ramesh Deosaran

Humanitarianism. This essentially means a policy towards promoting human welfare, advocating humane treatment. However, in a stiffly competitive environment with many people chasing few resources (eg socially desired goals), there will unfortunately be few winners and many losers, however called. With the over 19,000 students who recently wrote the competitive Secondary School Assessment (SEA) examination, this will be the case – only about 4500 students (including Concordat selections) getting into high-achieving secondary (prestige) schools. And the anger and tears will again flow when the results come out – a life and death matter.

Two things here (1) Some who believe in the “success by examination merit” principle go crazy when you say change the Concordat system. (2) Others, from priest to scholar, say the grammar-type Concordat education does not cater for the range of students’ abilities, and systemic inequity is perpetuated.

There is, of course, a bigger story here, but for now, let me say that even within some Concordat-governed schools, there are significant social class, gender and ethnic inequities in student achievement. I really anguished over these educational dilemmas when writing my book - Inequality, Crime and Education in Trinidad and Tobago: Removing the Masks (Ian Randle Publishers, 2016, pp 292-327), second reprint underway). And so, in Chapter 16, I wrote a section called “Humanitarianism” to explain the clash between the merit principle and humanitarianism. This section now briefly follows:

(1) “When a child is born as a human being, he or she is assumed to be equal to all other children, and entitled to the same privileges and rights that all other children enjoy. It is from here, basically, that the human right philosophy ‘all men are born equal’ emerges. But the research evidence in education demonstrates that, as life comes on, as the child grows up, this is not so.

Equality of opportunity and equity become disproportionately dependent on what social class-type of parents this child has, his or her colour, race or religion, what type of (primary) school he or she attends and even where this child lives. The education system is expected to be the major legitimate vehicle for escape.

For this disadvantaged group, the humanitarian violation is that, firstly, all these restraining factors are no fault of the child at all. But the society, the existing hierarchy of power, privilege and status impose themselves so harshly upon this growing child that he or she has to struggle, much more than others, to move up so as to enjoy the same privileges that the ‘better-born’ child gets – and expected to reach the same finishing line at the same time, though they started far behind.

Even so, and accepting that the society is vertically based on ability, effort, merit and scarce resources, the fundamental argument is that, in this post- colonial society, greater policy efforts must be made to improve the psychological and academic status of the racial, social class and gender groups who find themselves disproportionately left out or behind in the placement examinations and university entry. The required remedies fall within a humanitarian philosophy.

(2) There is a different view, mostly a merit-driven conservative one which claims to be more realistic. That is, with limited places in the preferred secondary schools, there is equal opportunity to write the same competitive entrance examination, and places are awarded on the basis of the marks gained. Those who score high marks deserve to get their preferred places.

Those who didn’t score high are responsible for not getting their preferred places – they did not make the effort or get the support required. This is the doctrine of individual responsibility, part of which is ‘work hard and sacrifice to achieve.’ This perspective sees 'limited places' as a static condition, not as an artificial variable.

Both conditions, limited spaces and the cut-off mark, arise mainly because of institutional deficiencies and public policy. The conservatives, however, fear that moving down the cut-off point or random distribution of places may well be unfair, watering down standards.

They see the education system as necessarily competitive, serving the social and economic order, where many are called but few chosen. These ‘left-overs’ deserve to go into technical/vocational programmes or eventually fall into welfare programmes. The conservatives will tend to preserve the system. Another argument is to defrost the system and inspire change.”