Belize - 5. Late Students and Dangerous Books

Every conference has its emerging themes and this one has been about the increasingly difficult task of getting students into school early. In remote locations in Belize, preschools are not available, or if they are, many of the teachers have little or no formal education in teaching and learning according to the Minister of Education. The government has been preparing an ‘early childhood education policy’ for the past decade, and hopes to increase the level of teacher education to at least an ‘associate degree’ for 50% of its early and primary teachers by 2015. Preschool, the Ministry has found, results in children staying in school longer. It raises the national literacy level. Early childhood education (ECE) and all-day kindergarten is a Worldwide trend now.

Yet in Belize, some preschools have unsafe facilities, no fences by highways, a ten foot drop off a porch, or toilet facilities located in a backyard, but cost little: $5/month per child. Others, have highly qualified teachers and model facilities, such as the ‘A to Z Learning Play School’, complete with a literacy and numeracy curriculum and assessment, field trips, and parental involvement, but the monthly cost is as much as $280/month per child. As in many parts of the world, your beginning in life is determined by your income gulf.

Secondary school also costs money.

Parents pay anywhere from $2,000 and up per year for a child to attend school past grade 7. Some students receive scholarships to go; others drop out to work.

Education is a highly valued, and expensive, commodity in Belize. Book stores on the college and university campuses had armed guards with machine guns. book store, they were fully visible. This was a surprise. I asked if I could take the guard’s photo.

 There are not even armed guards at the liquor stores, or the international markets, or even noticeable at the casino. But at the

He said, “yes”.

“Do you work every day?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because there is a lot of theft?”

“No.”

“Is there a lot of violence here?”

“No.”

And that was the end of the conversation. Words are dangerous. The books sold are carefully selected. Texts chosen and approved in advance. And yet, those words require armed guards, machine guns. We complain about the increasing commercialization of thought, but the next time you purchase a book online at Chapter’s, or pick up a selection walking by a book store, think of the guns that guard those words in Belize.

This is the day that I leave my clean hotel writing desk

and say goodbye to the uncomfortable duality of pools and palms: poverty and power.

May the gulf, one day, be bridged.