McKeeva Bush, Leader of Opposition, was not present to hear the rebuttal to his accusations from the Education Minister.

The Leader of the Opposition took aim at the Education Minister, Hon Alden McLaughlin, in the House last week when he said the Minister had wrongly indicted the children of the Cayman Islands with announcements of serious literacy problems based on the results of the international Terra Nova Test.

He said the Minister had given a skewed report of the results of the test and he said that the Minister was wrong to run a test that principals and students were reluctant to take.

However Mr McLaughlin had plenty of ammunition for the Leader of the Opposition.

On 5 May, in the Legislative Assembly, Minister McLaughlin opened a long round of counter arguments to Mr Bush’s points laying bare formerly withheld facts and figures demonstrating further the existence of the education crisis in Cayman.

Mr McLaughlin said he had been reluctant to reveal the figures in the past but decided to do so to discount Mr Bush’s claims and “knock on the head the type of nonsense and diatribe” that Mr Bush presented.

“When I read this I will leave it to the country to decide whom the indictment is against,” Mr McLaughlin added.

He also went on to describe the education system that he had inherited as Minister as one of a system of neglect and lack of attention for years and years and years.

Mr McLaughlin not only pointed fingers of blame for the blind eye to education problems at the former United Democratic Party, (UDP) administration, but he also accused the Truman Bodden administration of neglecting education in the Cayman Islands as well.

“They led a Government for four and a half years and all they cared about was huge (commercial) edifices,” said Mr McLaughlin. “They broke so much ground that we thought it was an earthquake.”

Puncturing holes in Mr Bush’s arguments Mr McLaughlin said that it was teachers that actually called for the change to the use of the Terra Nova Test in 2004. He said that to decide on the Terra Nova Test, three major international testing organisations had been short-listed and “the teachers were involved in choosing it.”

Mr McLaughlin then went on to reveal the consistently, astonishingly, low grades from the test.
Stating that the percentages were for those children found to be at or above grade level – that is, internationally accepted literacy standards – Mr McLaughlin read figures for public school students here in Cayman.

He said, 39 per cent of some 316 Year 2 students were “at or above grade level.”

He revealed “at or above grade level” percentages for other groups as follows: 32 per cent of some 363 in Year 3; 32 per cent of 341 in Year 4; 35 per cent of 327 in Year 5; 27 per cent of 332 in Year 6; 23 per cent of 284 in Year 8; 33.4 per cent of 293 in Year 9 at George Hicks.

The Minister said these figures did not include those for Cayman Brac. He said that all round, Cayman Brac students received much higher scores and gave an example of 57.5 per cent of 316 in Year 7.

After reading the figures Mr McLaughlin said, “Now let the Leader of the Opposition deal with that. He didn’t deal with it and now we are going to deal with things and not by making fancy speeches and not telling the truth.”

Mr McLaughlin made his rebuttal to Mr Bush’s remarks in a chamber where, more often than not, there was no member of the Opposition MLA team present.

Mr Bush appeared at no time throughout that morning session and Cline Glidden and Captain Eugene Ebanks were present in the House infrequently.

Mr McLaughlin pointed out this fact and asked, “Does the Leader of the Opposition not deem it sufficiently important to be here?”