Dear Santia Bradshaw,

I hope this email finds you in good health and spirits. Congratulations to the newly elected BLP government on a clean sweep! I trust you are settling in well. 

This email serves as a direct response to the invitation to provide ideas that can help repair and rebuild Barbados, as aired on CBC Channel 8, GIS Community Files.

Education is the main vehicle on which the people of Barbados have relied to improve their economic and social development. In 2010, The National Advisory Commission on education in Barbados (NACE) released a report and recommendations for a more equitable system of quality education here. Consequently, the most pressing issue is the primary schools' chronic underachievement; a worrying number of students are performing well below their class level (13).  It is noted that, “Still too many young [Barbadians are] at risk of not fulfilling their potential thus creating conditions for a cumulative learning deficit and diminished quality of life in years to come” (6). The NACE recommended innovative remediation programs that develop the students’ intellectual capacity, with the goal of developing lifelong learning (100). 

In order repair and rebuild, the current education systems needs to address the challenge posed by increasing large numbers of at-risk primary students who attend mainstream government schools.  I propose a cognitive intervention program aimed at teaching students to learn ‘how to learn’. To achieve this, I employ an innovative and unique educational tool: The Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment (FIE) Program. It is intended for those students who display challenges meeting basic proficiency standards in mathematics and literacy and those who display maladaptive social-emotional behaviours. 

Professor James J. Heckman is one of the lead investigators in a new research programme on the design and development of policy interventions. In, The Economics of Investing in Children, he shows how the economic return to early interventions have high benefit-cost ratios and rates of return. The benefit-cost ratio is eight to one. Rates of return are 15-17%. Similar returns are obtained for numerous early intervention programs.

Because of the dynamic nature of the skill formation process, remediating the effects of early disadvantages at later ages is often prohibitively costly. Skill begets skill; learning begets learning. Early disadvantage, if left untreated, leads to academic and social difficulties in later years; so do disadvantages. Early interventions targeted toward at-risk children have much higher returns than Post-school remediation programs such as reduced pupil-teacher ratios, public job training, General Educational Development (GED) certification, convict rehabilitation programs, tuition subsidies or expenditure on police.

Given these points, I strongly suggest early intervention using the Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment program as a remedy to repair and rebuild through education targeting students who are at-risk for learning challenges and do so on sound economic grounds. They benefit not only the children themselves, but also their children, as well as society at large.

My long-term vision for student at-risk, who are currently experiencing marginalization and barriers to learning, is an island wide undertaking of the Feuerstein Method where all teachers are equipped to teach students to adequately acquire the prerequisite skills necessary to meet basic proficiency standards in core subjects and in doing so raise the overall standard of education in every primary and secondary school in Barbados.

For now, my aim is to use this program to transform the cognitive development of 90 students who are at-risk for learning challenges in mainstream government primary school(s). With this method students' learning difficulty are addressed at the root so they may get on with the classroom curriculum and the many other fruitful initiatives intended to help them with the overall objective of helping students to lead more meaningful, giving lives. 

Thank you for your time. I invite you to read the full proposal attached.

Warm regards,

Ms. Agota Walkes

Special Needs Educator