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| Welcome to the Gene Factory |
| First, a caveat. Our lives brim with questions. To the day we die there are, no doubt, countless mysteries we shall never ever aspire to conquer. Ideas can survive us. What I seek to present here is in no way definitive, but hopefully, open-ended. The truth is out there... |
| 1. What is the point of an education? 2. What are the implications of the majority of a nation being uneducated? 3. How are developing nations prepared to face the unique challenges of the 21st, much less deal with left-overs from the 20th? 4. What are the causes of the large numbers of uneducated people in a developing nation like Belize? 5. How does one evaluate the claims of prestigious schools of offering excellent educations? Do the success of these schools hinge more on name than on actual curriculum? 6. How are school performances in general evaluated? 7. What is the point of special education? 8. Do special education programs really meet the needs of their students? 9. What would be the point of gifted education? 10. What would be the point of identifying gifted children, and how would one go about identifying them? 11. What is the point of selection examinations like Belize's PSE, or its predecessor, the BNSE? What do the results of these examinations say? 12. What has been the effect of migration on the educational systems of developing nations which send their scholars abroad while absorbing large numbers of immigrants such as refugees? 13. Which schools in Belize in particular 'produce' the best scholars? What have been the strategies of such schools? 14. How does the Government of Belize (as well as the govt.'s of other developing nations) labor to effect the development of human resources? 15. How important is Human Resource Development to governments of developing nations relative to other concerns? How does this concern figure in, in terms of budgetary allocations? 16. What is the state of scholasticism in a developing nation like Belize? |
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| Belize has presently, thirteen vistas for post-secondary education, namely: 1. Belize College of Agriculture 2. Belize Teachers' Training College 3. Belize Technical College 4. Bliss School of Nursing 5. Corozal Junior College 6. Muffles Junior College 7. Sacred Heart Junior College 8. Stann Creek Ecumenical Junior College 9. St. John's College Junior College 10. University College of Belize (Belize City) 11. University College of Belize (Toledo) 12. University College of Belize Junior College (Belmopan) 13. University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies In August 2000, schools 1-4 and 11-12 were amalgamated into the University of Belize, a far cry from the institution's original predecessor, BELCAST (Belize College of Arts, Science and Technology). |
| Intro: The point of this page is a discussion of ideas relating to the state of education in my homeland, Belize. |
| Questions of Cause & Effect |
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| Resources |
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| Institutions |
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| *In 1994, 46% of children do not complete primary education, while 11% of 5-14 year olds never entered primary school. (UNICEF1994, p.6) |
| REFERENCES 1. UNICEF, Belizean Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances,Cubola: 1994 2. UNICEF & NCFC, The Right to a Future: A Situation Analysis of Children in Belize, NCFC: 1995 3. Ruthesier, C., Cultural Colonization and Educational Underdevlopment: Changing Patterns of American Influence in Belizean Schooling, Belizean Studies Vol. 19, June 1991 |
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| *"In 1980, 2.2% of all males and 0.9% of all females reached the level of university education. By 1991, the number of males in the university fell to 1.6% but the females remained steady at 0.9%." (UNICEF& NCFC 1995, p. 74) |
| Pressing Concerns? |
| "For those [in Belize] who seek a university education, the choice is between a limited number of scholarships abroad or matriculation at the recently founded University College of Belize which despite its Anglophilic name, is, in effect, a branch campus of a mediocre university in the American midwest." (Rutheiser 1991, p. 18) |
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