The reward of 'passing' the GSAT is being able to attend your high school of first choice. On what basis do students (or their parents) select their first choice? Is it convenience (i.e. near to home, or near to their parents' workplace, providing ease of transportation)? Or is it religion (parents want their children brought up in their own faith, so they choose a Baptist or a Church of God school)? Or is it class snobbery (parents want their children to mix with a certain class of people rather than with others)? Or is it quality (parents know that some schools deliver excellent education and others deliver a second-rate product)?

Undoubtedly, all these factors play some part but probably the latter is dominant - being placed in a school called a 'traditional high school' is favoured over being placed in an 'upgraded high school'. The fact is that some types of schools at the secondary level offer low-quality education and parents and students try to avoid those schools like the plague. Eleven-year-old children have been known to commit suicide when they hear which school they have been placed in.

Why should this be so? In other countries, state-funded secondary education is of relatively even quality. If the rich want a higher-quality education for their children, they have to pay the full cost of it themselves. In Jamaica, the better quality high school education for children of the rich is largely paid for by the taxes of the poor.

Automatic movement

In other countries, the movement of students from state-funded primary schools to state-funded secondary schools is more or less automatic and you attend the high school nearest your home. In fact, national planning includes building primary and secondary schools in central locations to serve the whole country and a school bus system transports children from home to school and back.

In Jamaica, the good quality schools are largely operated by churches or trusts and are located in an eccentric manner. Parents are then faced with the everyday challenge of transporting their children over long distances from home to school, and then themselves going to work, probably in an entirely different area, causing horrendous rush-hour traffic jams - a big waste of time and expensive automotive fuel.

As the population of Kingston moved uptown during the second half of the 20th century, the majority of traditional high school places did not. Schools like Wolmer's Boys and Wolmer's Girls, St George's College, Alpha Academy and Kingston College are located near to each other and far away from their catchment area, making their geographical placement irrational.

No traditional schools nearby

The truth is that almost none of Jamaica's traditional high schools were built to cater specifically to children living nearby. Almost all of them began as private boarding schools, with resident students and staff, and only a minority of 'day students'. As time went on, most of the boarding facilities closed and the schools accepted Grant-in-Aid from the government and, in return, allowed the government to determine 95 per cent of their student intake. Jamaica's high school system was never designed as a national system and we are suffering for it.

It's time we develop and implement a rational national plan for a consistent high-quality secondary education. It must involve creating enough high school places so that we can abolish all-age schools and junior high schools. We need to put an end to the disparity in quality between secondary-level schools so that it doesn't matter which publicly funded high school a student is placed in. We can then abolish the GSAT and move to a geographically based system.

If churches or trusts don't want their schools in the geographically based system then they can convert them into private schools, fully supported by school fees. If parents don't want their children placed geographically then they can pay the full cost of sending their children to a private school.

No longer must the state fund an elite school system from the taxes of poor people. The 200th anniversary of emancipation from slavery should not come before we emancipate ourselves from our apartheid education system.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.