The Intersection of Gender, Culture and Education: Jamaica: The Next 50 Years!

“Providing sustainable access to improved drinking water sources is one of the most important things we can do to reduce disease”- World Health Organization Director General-Dr. Margaret Chan. Water is life and forms the core of sustainable development.   World Water Day is commemorated each year on March 22. The day is set aside to raise global awareness of the various issues associated with having clean water for human consumption and other related functions. The significance of World Water Day which is a United Nations initiative aims to make a difference for the members of the global population who suffer from water related issues such as diseases.   It’s a day for reflection regarding how best to prepare for how we manage water in the future.    The theme this year is “Better Water, Better Jobs”. Interestingly, half of all workers around the globe (1.5 billion) work in water related industries.   Disturbingly, despite the correlations between jobs and wa...

I am in total support of having more females in representational politics. Historically, gender division has been rooted in patriarchy and has served to reinforce traditional roles and personality traits of females often associated with weakness and dependence. Studies now reveal that women bring both a tangible and intangible service to any situation to which they are included. However, we need to consider very careful the social and economic implications among others for going the route of legislation to ensure gender quotas to increase female representation for the nation’s parliament as well as State boards. We live in a very interesting time when gender identity as a social construct is very fluid and changes rapidly. As a result, we should not try to box in gender identity into our traditional views of masculinity and femininity.   Gender identity refers to which sex you feel as if you are on the inside, (male, female, both, neither, flexible) By adhering to a strict cod...

All children can learn, all children must learn. This is usually true if all the factors are in place to encourage teaching and learning. However, upon closer examination there are many learning challenges that hinder children from learning. Jamaica’s education system is faced with many challenges but perhaps the most prevalent barrier to education is dyslexia.  Dyslexia in many instances is genetic and runs in family. Dyslexia affects up to 17 per cent of a given population. C hildren with dyslexia have difficulty learning to "decode," or read words by associating sounds and letters or letter combinations. Students usually have difficulty recognizing common "sight words," or frequently occurring words that most readers recognize instantly. Examples of sight words are "the" and "and." Children with dyslexia also have difficulty learning how to spell, sometimes referred to as "encoding." Recent research suggests that there are two main f...