| 1 | 1 | | Kevin Morgan is 17. Two years ago his parents decided to take him out of his |
| 2 | | London secondary school and send him to be educated in Jamaica. 'Kevin's a bright boy, |
| 3 | | but he was not achieving,' his mother, Maria Rattray, said. 'He was labeled " unruly" in |
| 4 | | common with other black children we know. We felt that instead of trying to motivate |
| 5 | | and encourage him , his school was quick to categorize him as unwilling or unable to |
| 6 | | learn.' |
| 2 | 7 | | Kevin's parents' decision to send him to Woolmer's Boys School in Kingston, |
| 8 | | Jamaica, was unusual but not unique. Education consultant Beverly Anderson, carrying |
| 9 | | out a study into race and education for Islington Council in London, found a number of |
| 10 | | families considering having their children educated in the West Indies, and several who |
| 11 | | had done so. "The truth is that Jamaica and other Caribbean islands have a school system |
| 12 | | which many parents look back on as being disciplined and academically demanding, |
| 13 | | qualities which they feel the state system here lacks,' Mrs Anderson said. |
| 3 | 14 | | John Austin, who will be 10 this month, and his eight-year-old sister Amanda are in |
| 15 | | Barbados, where they have been attending their father's former school, St Lucy's |
| 16 | | Primary, since 1987. They live with their grandparents, while their parents remain in |
| 17 | | South London. |
| 4 | 18 | | Mrs Austin: 'People have said to me: "How can you love your kids if you send |
| 19 | | them away?" Of course I miss them , but that's not the point. H's because I love them I |
| 20 | | want the best for them. I'd rather have the peace of mind that they 're doing well |
| 21 | | academically there than have them with me and worry that they're being held back at |
| 22 | | school. |
| 5 | 23 | | Over there discipline is better and the teachers care about how well the children do. |
| 24 | | They push them to achieve. We reached the decision with the children, young as they are. |
| 25 | | They had an open ticket in case they wanted to come back. They didn't. ' |
| 6 | 26 | | The decision to send their children away had been made gradually, she said. The |
| 27 | | actual decision came when John's school told Mrs Austin that he 'asked too many |
| 28 | | questions', 'He's keen to learn and always asks questions,' said Mr Austin. 'We just |
| 29 | | couldn't understand how that could be wrong.' |
| 7 | 30 | | Mr and Mrs Austin also believed unruly behavior was distracting John, the only |
| 31 | | black child in his class, and holding him back. 'We feit that as long as he was being |
| 32 | | called names by the other children and they were allowed to get away with disrupting the |
| 33 | | class, he'd never make progress,' said Mr Austin. 'We didn't see that changing schools |
| 34 | | here would help.' |
| 8 | 35 | | Beverly Anderson's report on race and schooling is full of anecdotes about low |
| 36 | | teacher expectations of black children and lack of black teachers as role mode is. Some |
| 37 | | progress has been made, particularly in inner London, for instanee in recruiting black |
| 38 | | teachers, she said. But there has been little involvement of families in the change. ' In |
| 39 | | discipline particularly there has been a change in school culture which has not taken |
| 40 | | place with the understanding and acceptance of black parents, many of whom remember |
| 41 | | a more old-fashioned style at their own schools.' |
| 9 | 42 | | To Maria Rattray it is not simply a question of style: 'Basically education is better |
| 43 | | in Jamaica. Academie standards are higher and failure is something to be ashamed of. |
| 44 | | And you don 't get the discipline problems you have over here.' |
