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WIFI'Y PME PRESS WEDNESDAY, ~1 E 20, 1989, PAGE 7 PJAGE SEVEN DE'.RO MISEDUATION Afe or weso csiggvrmn at n educatior syse ifcssspea noer hre eve ofgoendn and several ministries ... and it shows. mlIUI Viewed within a narrow context, the system works fine. ~~IA IlL1V We have millions of students reasonably contentlyr enrolled inINIzLI sehool and they're learning most of what they need te knowI G te live and work in our society. Generally, we ýcan consider ourselves one of the best educated countries on eprth. 0NT OMIC>o LU XURY IN A But when we look at our education system in the context FAIRYTAE SE '"D C t Vc'L uR 10u S, of a massive government debt we have to'.look at the OE FIYA SSU OUBLU, efficiency of the system and whether, in fact, it delivers good wMOU CSLG value. Under such scrutiny it falis apart. SE you!' For starters, surveys.indicate that twenty percent of the ~ working population is*,functionally illiterate, that is, their S require the use of written instructions and/or basic written X.- reporting. Considering that ids start learning te re ad and write from grade one on, these statistics point te, some pretty ______________________________________ fundamental failures in the very early stages of education.________ _____________________________ Twenty per cent is a large nuniber. ___ The shocking truth is that there are a very few studentsm every year who' manage te, graduate from high school without ever learning how te read - sonie have managed te, fool the system but most are simply passed through year by year in the pretense that nothing can be done. Although personafly tragic for the student involved, it is also an economic tragedy for the whole country.. ....... Universities, who get the cream of high sehool graduates, are finding nevertheless that many are requiring remedial english courses. Despite this, universities seern te have no influence in getting the primary and secondary schools to improve their teaching. Surely if the universities can teach the subýject, the lower schools can too. But unemployment is the most obvious sign of an educa- tional system in bureaucratic gridlock. General unemnploy- ment hovers around. seven percent but youth uniemployment is much higher. Our young people are simply not being given the skçills te hold a job. Isn't that why they go te school? - to acquire the skills required to be useful productive citizens? The skills that people need in our technological society are changing rapidly and the schools are not keeping up. The process for getting new curricula into the schools or updating the ones already in place is frought with committees and studies and more committees and more studies. The cost of youth unemployment in insurance payments RING STREET PUBLIC SCHOOL, 1923 alone is billions of dollars a year. The social and spin-off costs King Street Public School, which was nazned R. A. Sennett Public School 10 years ago, was are billions more. Yet ultimately, most will eventually find built in 1921 to replace an earlier sehool that burned down. Mr. Sennett was its first jobs because they pick up the skcills they need. on the outside. picpl rm12 o 92 diin eemd oteshë n15 n 97 A study done by the University of Waterloo showed that prnipl fo 12 t 95.Adiiosweemaetete coo n 98 np18hoto the vast majority (80-90%/) of high school students and their WIb parents looked forward te a university education, yet statistics show that only 30 per cent actually made it. 10 YEARS AGO Even these are being given a largely irrelevant education. fo teWInsdn Sneme 1,19ediinomh system has failed them. Many training prograins are simply a duplication of the sanie courses in the'sanie schools that I 75 YEARS AGO failed the first time around. Se we the taxpayers pay twice or from the Thursday, September 17, 1914 edition of the even three times. WHITY GAZETTE AND CHRONICLE Although skyrocketing education costs are primarily a* The Boyer-Vincent Stock Company will present the comedy-drama "A Jealous Wife,' at failure of the provincial and local governments, the federal the Whitby Opera House tenight. governument provides a sufficiently large slice that it should* Whitby citizens were surprised te see a gang of 24 Italians putting the trunk sewer under be able te exert considerable influence, and before it hits us the Grand Trunk Railway on a Sunday. with the GST, we have a right te expert such influence te be* The Asylum, Farm at the lake has 35 acres of splendid corn, and silos will be built for tis exerted. crop in the fall. In the interests of the Canadian taxpayer, the duplication* Brookln School Fair will be held on Sept. 23 on the school grounds, under the direction of and inefficiency of the educational system should be rectified the Ontario Department of Agriculture. rather than being propped up even further by the GST.___________ __________________________