Editorial | Ms Wilson and Calabar

We’d wish it were merely a routine development: the appointment of a head teacher at a high school.

Sian-Mahay Wilson’s accession as principal of Calabar High, the Baptist boys’ school in Kingston, is significant on two fronts. She is the first woman to head the institution in its 112-year history; second, earlier this year, she was loudly opposed for the job by the school’s Old Boys’ Association, as well as its parent-teacher group.

The old boys were so adamant that they threatened to suspend their mentorship programme for students if Ms Wilson got the post. Incredulously, the parent-teacher association (PTA) backed that stance.

While this posturing was in public, no one ever said precisely why either group objected to Ms Wilson, except for vague allusions to leadership. As it turned out, in July Calabar’s board of governors formally appointed her as the school’s principal.

This week, as the new school year started, Ms Wilson told The Gleaner that the Old Boys’ Association had pledged its support, which presumably was to the institution.

Given the past developments, this newspaper believes that two things must now happen for the good of the school. First, both the Old Boys’ Association and the PTA must clarify their positions on Ms Wilson’s appointment, the nature of their support, and the basis upon which it will be delivered. Indeed, it is easy for either group to declare support for Calabar the institution, and attempt to define that differently from supporting principal Wilson.

In a potentially fragile environment like a school, such a duality is likely to be untenable. Strains quickly become apparent and often spill over to the wider school community, affecting institutional morale. This then affects teaching and learning.

Moreover, the economic and emotional support that PTAs and past students’ groups like the Calabar Old Boys’ Association provide to the institutions to which they are allied are often vital to their operation. If these resources and services are held as cudgels over principals and school managers, it leads not only to distractions, but an undermining of the stability of the institutions. Calabar has the example of the contretemps of recent years between the principal and governors of Jamaica College, broadly, on one side, and the school’s Old Boys’ Association on the other. The matter included defamation and other court cases.

It is better in the circumstances that issues are fully thrashed out, rather than allowed to fester. The resolution, and the basis thereof, should be shared with all stakeholders, including taxpayers, who pick up the chunk of the bill for the running of the island’s schools.

VISION FOR CALABAR

At the same time, this is an opportunity for Ms Wilson to set out a vision for Calabar. She must say how she plans to return it to an institution of discipline, and beyond a school defined by sports and mediocre educational outcomes.

We expect the latter assertion might be disputed.

Calabar is usually named among Jamaica’s ‘traditional’ high schools, the 40 or so top-tier institutions where most parents hope their children find places in transitioning from primary school.

However, while this year’s outcome represents an 11 percentage points improvement on 2023, based on Educate Jamaica’s annual high school rankings only 64 per cent of Calabar’s 11th grade cohort in 2024 completed their five years of high school with passes in five subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams, with mathematics and English among them. These include subjects passed in earlier grades.

Based on Education Jamaica’s scoring system, Calabar ranked 25th among more than 100 secondary schools.

However, in its 2022 report on transforming Jamaica’s education system, the Orlando Patterson Commission used a broader matrix, including exam performance, the readiness of students when they enrol in school and their achievements at the end, to provide a value-added measure of performance of Jamaica’s high school. Calabar ranked 40th in that broader, value-added ranking, which better captures how a school might have contributed to a child’s educational development .

But matrices notwithstanding, this newspaper does not believe that 64 per cent of 11th grade students at a top high school passing five subjects or more at CSEC, including maths and English, is anything to crow about. It is a near disaster in need of fixing.

Ms Wilson must demonstrate that she has clear ideas to get the job done, and to change the image of the school, whose students are often involved in brawls in town squares.

There may be reasons to question whether Ms Wilson is up to the task. She has taught at Calabar for three decades and was a vice-principal for nearly eight years before her promotion. She was there during its period of decline, and was a senior manager for part of it.

Yet, it is conceded that she was not the top person. She should say how she will now be the difference.