The 1991 Housing Census report told us that there were major weaknesses in the SVG primary school education system, and more seriously, boys are underachieving at the primary school level. This has led to a tangible drop-off of boys not going on to secondary school education.

In a developed country the warning given by the census would have resulted in policy changes to sharply correct the weaknesses in the primary education system. It has however, taken the ULP regime 6 years’ of office to recognise the scientific warning given by the 1991 Housing Census report. On Friday 9th February, a senior spokesperson for the Ministry of Education said on SVGTV news, that they now recognise problems at the primary school level and that mechanisms will be put in place to correct the problems. No mention was made about boys underachieving in education.

The visionary SVG Green Party is very concerned at the social time-bomb effects on society by males who are missing out on primary school education. We are making a very strong call to the Ministry of Education to introduce single-sex primary school education classes. We need to grasp the bull by the horns and lead the Caribbean in single-sex primary school education. Countries with single-sex primary school education do not have the problem of males underachieving in education disproportionately to their female peers.

Since independence in 1979 none of the 3 political parties that have been in charge of the socio-economic affairs of SVG, have put in to operation a long-term cohesive strategy to move our youth forward in science and modern technology. For job creation, self-esteem and empowerment in SVG, we do not have a skills training facility that we can be proud of. We have the old mindset of doing work that is labour intensive to create jobs.

The ULP has little idea of the socio-economic snapshot of young people - what they do, how they survive from day to day, what they want to do and what is preventing them from achieving what they want to achieve. This may be why part of the ULP approach to solving some of the problems facing young males is to ridicule them by calling them vagabonds. This kind of derogatory labelling further destroys the self-esteem of young people and dis-empowers the youth of SVG. It is not part of any solution to help young people and is unacceptable behaviour.

SVG Green Party takes a positive approach and calls for substantial resources to be put in place to train our youths, so that they can harness their full potential to benefit themselves and our country. We need to look at what personal aspects in young males lives influence or determine decisions they make about taking up or refusing training and employment opportunities. We need as a nation to be aware of what young males see as barriers to 'getting on' and then develop with young males, ways for them to overcome these barriers. SVG Green Party is the leader in the Caribbean for the policy of the introduction of single sex primary school education.

There is an old dictum which says ‘if you believe education is costly try ignorance’.