THE EDUCATION PARADIGM SHIFT NEEDED IN BELIZE THE NATION

OUR MENNONITES HAVE PROVED IT. EDUCATION THAT WORKS FOR DEVELOPMENT HAS CHANGED. THE REST OF BELIZE HAS YET TO CATCH UP TO THE MENNONITE COMMUNITIES.

Education ! What in Belize can be considered a good education today?

Well if you study the small country of Belize, you will find that standard education copied from the Europeans and USA systems; that the European systems are pretty much worthless in BELIZE for demonstrated in the real world practical reasons. We lack the population and size to go industrial in the big scale sense. Educational specializing, seems useless, we are not big enough, and a general smattering of broad education exposure, in special subjects more compatible with our immediate future decades of growth. Our higher educational institutions outside of the successful ITVET fledgling "PAY AS YOU GO", demand College Education system, produce the academics needed for our bureaucracy, but in the private sector they have proved inadequate, if not worthless for the development pioneering expanding needs of the small Belize economy. The future for GROWTH in Belize is small scale light manufacturing and exporting for niche markets. These things we can teach ourselves given access to the internet at home.

The 60,000 or so Mennonite populated communities found in the boonies of Belize, have shown that a GOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION, done with HIGH teacher, to student ratios. About ONE TEACHER to five or six students in most MENNONITE privately funded schools, is the best way to go. The basics are the three R´s. Reading, Riting and Rithmetic. Nowadays you can include for Standard 5 and 6, a typing class for keyboard typing, plus computer familiarity. The internet has replaced HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. You can teach yourself almost anything, and certainly anything productive that small Belize will fabricate and export to the outside world. Why knock demonstrated Belizean success? European education is worthless here in our development conditions.

Now you cannot fault the Mennonite education system, because in the conditions of the REAL WORLD and our place as a nation in that world, the Mennonite educational system works many times better and more productively than existing European educational system copies we have made to date. BELIZE IS PROOF OF THAT. It concentrates on a work ethic and Mennonite kids start working from 6 years old. It is not unusual to see a 10 year old kid, driving a huge combine machine, or a team of horses and wagon, or driving his own 4 wheeler, or dirt bike. The 12 year old girls are tending the cash register in local stores. So are the Chinese kids. It used to be that way in Colonial Belize. They learn by watching and nowadays they are learning lots of NEW THINGS, using the internet. Unfortunately, most of the other rural Belize has no internet and dubious electricity supply. THAT WE HAVE TO FIX.

Mennonites are rebuilding engines, reboring, grinding, repairing with machine shops and huge lathes. ( They are self taught. ) They are building ultra light airplanes and kids are learning to fly them, self taught with a bit of tutoring from someone who already knows how. Belizeans on the coast have a long tradition of ship building and this still is learned by mentoring, or self taught.

I think the point of EDUCATION IN BELIZE, now points to more money being put into PRIMARY SCHOOL QUALITY EDUCATION, like the Mennonites do, with low student to teacher ratios. Six to one preferably. A change in the labor laws where these laws conflict with the needs of a developing country. Less emphasis on tertiary education copying European style and more to do with ITVET, Community College type systems.
Most of all, the rural farms, villages and homes, NEED ELECTRICITY and INTERNET SERVICE, to raise the next generations by their own self education bootstraps, so to speak. We are not going to invent complicated industrial mass produced factories in Belize, but we can copy well, and we can import the materials to build OFF THE SHELF products, to assemble or rearrange for export. For this, a GOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION and access to the INTERNET, MILLIONS OF " HOW TO " websites can change Belize. BETTER THAN HIGH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. The world of education has changed and outside of providing academic,degree papered salaried people for our government bureaucracy, there is little need to do other than the MENNONITES have proven in EDUCATION. THINK ABOUT IT?