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By John Muir and Annan Boodram |
Writing in the British media Abbott said, "There is a silent catastrophe happening in Britain's schools in the way they continue to fail black British school-children. When African and Afro-Caribbean children enter the school system at five they do as well as white and Asian children in tests. By 11 their achievement levels begin to drop off. By 16 there has been a collapse. And this is particularly true of black boys - 48% of all 16-year-old boys gain five GCSEs, grades A to E. Only 13% of black boys in London achieve this standard. In some boroughs the figure is even worse."
It has long been recognised that young British Afro-Caribbeans fail and are failed by the secondary (high-school) education system. As long ago as 1977 a House of Commons select committee on race relations and immigration reported that 'as a matter of urgency the Government should institute a high-level and independent inquiry into the causes of the underachievement of children of West Indian origin in maintained schools and the remedial action required'.
But in 1999 Ofsted, in its publication, Raising the Attainment of Minority Ethnic Pupils, said: 'The gap between Afro-Caribbean pupils and the rest of the school population continues to widen.'
Dr. Majors Jumps in
Now that debate has been firmly stoked by the controversial views an academic of West Indian and American Heritage, Dr Richard Majors
Dr Majors, who advised President Bill Clinton's administration on youth policy and is a former Fellow of Harvard, said it was a disgrace that Afro-Caribbean boys performed well - even out-performing their classmates - until they reached secondary school, when their results nose-dived.
Majors, who is Afro-Caribbean himself, accused headteachers and the teaching unions of protecting weak teachers unable to deal with black pupils. 'We know who these teachers are in the system. But it is often seen as simpler to exclude a poor black child than to deal with the deficiencies of the teacher.'
He said black boys who appeared aggressive to teachers often just wanted fairer treatment, and this drive for 'social justice' should be channelled by teachers rather than dismissed as disruptive behaviour.
'Social justice is the key to this problem. Children from the Caribbean are encouraged to stand up for principles and fairness and not back down where white British culture says, "Don't challenge, don't contradict, don't rock the boat".
Major's latest book, Educating Our Black Children , was published last year. He dissected the experience of young black boys inside British schools. The book painted a bleak picture. Young blacks are excluded (thrown out of school temporarily or permanently) six times more often than their white counterparts. They are more likely to play truant, more likely to fail, to come into conflict with the law, and more likely to end up in prison.
"We are obsessed with punishment," he says "Policy is all about sin bins rather than social relationships and behaviour. I don't think exclusions will reduce until we radicalise our thinking. Why are so many black children being excluded and why are so many children excluding themselves?"
Majors has worked in England for five years, most recently as deputy director of an education action zone in Wigan. He has served on several Government task forces on social exclusion and he .now believes the British Government must completely rethink its policy: 'We have to go beyond the committees, think tanks and reports. What we need is some real funding for institutions to deal with this crisis. Until Ministers recognise this is a national emergency, we will get nowhere.'
Task Force
In recognition of this crisis London head teachers were recently called to talks in Downing Street to reduce the number of Afro-Caribbean boys excluded from school and to develop a national strategy for raising the achievement of black youths.
Education Minister Baroness Ashton is chairing a new task force, including London heads and school inspectors, aimed at identifying ways in which black teenagers can be "turned on" to education.
The initiative comes as London faces a surge of street robberies which topped record levels of more than 50,000 last year. Clear links have already been established between school exclusions and crime, with studies showing that six out of 10 excluded children committed offences while out of school.
Home Office figures also show that black teenagers commit a disproportionate number of crimes in London and that blacks are responsible for 57 per cent of robberies.
Reducing exclusions from school was one of the major successes claimed by Tony Blair's first government. Numbers were reduced from a peak of 12,700 in 1997 to just over 8,000 and last year after which former education secretary David Blunkett declared the battle won, setting no targets for further reductions.
Against this background, the Government has felt able to meet teachers' demands for tougher disciplinary powers, making it easier for schools to exclude pupils whose behaviour jeopardises the safety and education of others.
Education Secretary Estelle Morris has said she is confident that Government initiatives will prevent exclusions rising again. Pupil "mentors" have been appointed to help schools deal with difficult teenagers and in-school "sin bins" remove children temporarily from the classroom as an alternative to expelling them.
But privately, according to one Government race adviser, ministers are worried that schools may misuse their powers - aware of claims that some teachers exclude black children for offences they would tolerate in other pupils.
The initiative comes after one race campaigner blamed London's upsurge in shootings and carjackings on a "moral vacuum" inhabited by many black people. Lee Jasper, who made his name criticising police attitudes to the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, said young black men were being drawn into a "multimillion pound economy of drugs and guns which subverts mainstream morality and social responsibility".
The task force has been established by Tony Blair's Social Exclusion Unit. London schools with excellent track records with Afro-Caribbean pupils have been called to Cabinet Office meetings with ministers and senior civil servants.
The elements of the strategy already beginning to emerge include putting black culture at the heart of the school curriculum for Afro-Caribbean pupils. Schools which do best with Afro-Caribbean boys ensure that high-achieving black mentors regularly visit the school.
Extra training for teachers is also likely to be established as a priority. One London head teacher whose staff received training in "understanding black adolescents" said it had led to much better discipline.
RESPECT Campaign
Another initiative is a drive to increase the number of African-Caribbean children achieving good results in science and technology subjects, so more of them can enter scientific careers, has been launched.
Announcing a £100,000 grant to fund the national "RESPECT" campaign, the Science Minister, Lord Sainsbury, said encouraging more youngsters from the African-Caribbean community was essential to "make the most of the potential of all young people" in Britain.
Although they represent 0.9% of the population, Black Caribbean students represent an estimated 0.2% of those working in medicine and dentistry.
By contrast, other ethnic groups such as Indian, Bangladeshi and Chinese are over-represented compared to their numbers in the population at large.
However Black Caribbean students are far better represented in subjects such as law, political studies and librarianship.
Schools in Manchester, Trafford, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Bristol, Northamptonshire and London will be involved in the "RESPECT" campaign.
Students aged between 8 and 14 will be put in touch with African-Caribbean professionals who are already working in science careers. These mentors, or role-models, will maintain long-term relationships with the schools.
The scheme will be run by the African-Caribbean Network for Science and Technology and will help young people get qualifications and jobs in areas like science, medicine and engineering.
The Network's director, Dr Elizabeth Rasekoala, said the aim was to raise awareness of "the under-representation and under-participation" of black people in these areas.
Teaching Manhood
Yet another initiative could emerge out of a program that has given Carl Martin the hope that he could go to university in the autumn to study for a degree in exercise science that could lead to a job as a sports physiotherapist or a soccer coach.
Martin's new confidence and sense of direction derive from an accredited personal development course run exclusively for young African-Caribbean men at City College Manchester.
Its tutor, Richard Majors, says, "We believe that manhood is not a birthright but something that has to be learned," says Dr Majors, now a senior fellow at Manchester University.
"We focus on the notion of rites of passage, which had a great significance in many societies in west Africa and among Native American communities and, more recently, in Jewish communities with the bar mitzvah. Those societies had an elder or male leader who inculcated the nature of manhood."
Dr Majors argues that many of their problems derive from notions of masculinity picked up from their peers rather than being taught. They define their maleness in macho terms - how much they drink, how many girls they sleep with. "Many of these boys come from fatherless homes," he says. "So I'm a role model myself to many of them. You cannot solve the problems of these boys by focusing on conflict or anger-management alone. Those are just symptoms.
"To solve problems you have to look at a developmental model that examines the roots of the issues the boys deal with. We try to focus on those gender-related issues that can cause self-destruction - on raising awareness, challenging macho value systems and helping the boys to come up with alternatives."
In one session, the boys are encouraged to write to their fathers. "You should see some of what the boys have written," adds Majors. "Some of the toughest become like little kids when they start writing about their relationships with their dads and what they wanted them to be like."
Dr Majors hopes many course graduates will go on to become "junior facilitators" on similar courses and so return to their communities as role models.
Visiting Jamaican Schools
Meanwhile, 10 teachers from the London Borough of Newham paid a recent visit to Jamaica with the hope that a better understanding of their culture and family background could help raise the educational achievement of black boys of African-Caribbean origin in British schools.
The teachers are involved in a long-term project looking into why boys do not do as well as girls at school.
But while teachers are just beginning to recognize that some answers may be culled from the Caribbean parents likeDonna Murray are turning to 'back home' to providetheir children with the 'right' education. Donna is one of a growing number of British parents of African-Caribbean origin who are enrolling their children in Caribbean schools.
Donna's 13-year-old, British-born son, Nkosi attended primary school in Neasden but now attends Wolmer's Boys' School, one of Jamaica's most prestigious secondary schools.
Parents like Donna, herself a teacher, feel British-Caribbean boys are often unfairly treated because teachers in England do not understand their mannerisms and behaviour, a point emphasized by Wolmer's principal, Dave Myrie, born in Britain of Jamaican parents.
In England, he observes, there were few black role models, especially in schools where there were few black teachers but plenty of black cleaners and catering staff. By contrast, his pupils can see positive black role models all around them.
He believes Jamaican schools thrive by having "high expectation and firm but fair discipline".
"The bottom line is that students are expected to do well," he said.
With respect to British schools, Myrie says, "First they need to understand the culture the boys come out of", he said, "as you need to know what makes children tick and that is wrapped up in their cultural background."
He then believes this knowledge must be filtered into teacher training so teaching can be moulded to the pupils rather than "expecting the child to fit a particular mould that the school has".
But while Mr Myrie believes British schools could do better by black boys, he does not agree with any suggestion that there should be black-only schools in Britain.
Black British pupils, he says, live in a multi-cultural society and schools should reflect that. p.m.