Jamaican Culture Essay

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Education A modern education system did not reach Jamaica until the early 1970s. Even after the abolition of slavery, education remained rather uncommon among Jamaicans. The early efforts to bring education to the country were brought by Christian churches; however this option was only available for the white “elite”, most often children of colonists. To teach reading and writing to slaves was illegal by law from the late 18th century until the 19th century when schools also for non-white children were established. Despite this, the percentage of children attending secondary school in 1943 was less than 1 percent of Blacks and only 9 percent of the mixed races. Together with the independence in 1962, a national education policy was developed. The major goal for the government in the field of education was the construction of adequate number of primary and secondary schools. However, until the 1970s, the educational system did still not manage to provide sufficient opportunities for the children and youth, mostly because of features inherited from the British educational system still remained. The British educational system was implemented in Jamaica by the British colonists with the use of British textbooks, examinations and curriculum (http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/727/Jamaica-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html ). Many problems arose due to the fact that the textbooks were produced in Britain as well as North-America. The texts were written from the perspective of highly industrialized societies which did not reflect the values and daily lives of the Jamaicans. Furthermore, the costs of purchasing the books were so high that parents simply could not afford them, this resulting in children ending up without textbooks and thereby a decline in their performance and literacy as well as an overall increase in the dropout rates. In addition to the
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