Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Morgan
Job : Intellectual
life in T&T
There
is no way Mr Manning's 2020 Vision can become
reality given the pervasive mathematical illiteracy
in Trinidad and Tobago. No developed country economy
rests on the foundation of scientific backwardness
that is the reality of this country, whatever Mr
Manning's prophetess believes or predicts. Dr Winston
Mahabir wrote a political biography In and out
of politics. In it he says that "Eric Williams
was aware of the importance of Mathematics, but
stayed far from the subject." He says, "Rudrunath
Capildeo was a genius at mathematics", but
mad, and was a positive "danger as a politician";
and it was a blessing that Capildeo never became
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. "He
would have mashed up the place", Mahabir thought.
I
had not read Dr Mahabir's book when I wrote an
essay in the Guardian Eric Williams was not
a Mathematician. I had discerned the fact from
the way Dr Williams used numbers and percentages
in his writing of history; and interpreting these
with my own professional and lifelong study of
mathematics (especially econometrics and mathematical
statistics).Then, Selwyn Cudjoe comes to the Morning
Edition to reveal that Selwyn Carrington has written
a preface to Cudjoe's book Eric Williams Speaks
containing the following: "On April 1, 1991,
Dr Morgan Job in his column Think Again published
a great deal of verbiage entitled Eric Williams
was not a Mathematician, in an effort to ridicule
not only Capitalism and Slavery but also Williams'
contribution to the intellectual culture of the
West Indies and to historiographical literature
on slavery and abolition. Suffice it to say that
much of the writing appearing in the print media
in Trinidad suffers from what can best be termed
misinformed mediocrity."
The
American Committee for Economic Development (CED)
reports that: "A declining pool of qualified
engineering students may threaten America's position
as a world leader in engineering, according to
a new study by ACT, titled 'Maintaining a Strong
Engineering Workforce.' The study points to a large
drop over the past 12 years in the number of high
school graduates who plan to study engineering
in college, as well as to lower levels of preparation
and achievement among these students. Of the more
than 1.1 million seniors in the class of 2002 who
took the ACT Assessment college entrance and placement
exam, fewer
than six per cent planned to study engineering
in college, down from a high of nearly nine per
cent in 1992. In addition, these students are less
certain of their major than those in the past,
with more than 40 per cent indicating they need
help deciding their educational and career plans.
Potential engineering majors of today are less
likely than those of the past to take rigorous
high school courses that prepare them for a college
engineering programme. Over the past 12 years,
the percentage of these students who have taken
a college preparatory programme in high school
has decreased.
The
US problem is very much worse in Trinidad and
Tobago. We cannot import brains from the rest
of the world as the US does; and it is much more
than an engineering problem. Eric Williams did
say that, "There is no intellectual life in
Trinidad." The dismissal of an essay asserting
that the profits from slavery cannot explain the
Industrial Revolution as an attack on the value
of Dr Williams' contribution to the writing about
the slave trade is to display lack of understanding
of the logic of industrial development, or what
are the factors explaining the Asian miracle growth
during the past 50 years( Japan, Taiwan, Korea,
Singapore, and now China and India). The Americans
are agonising and doing things to improve their
supply of mathematics and science students. We
promote obeah, and refuse to intellectually discuss
the questions related to modernization and economic
growth. They are dealing with primary schools,
secondary schools and preparing children thus: "Among
potential engineering majors in the class of 2002,
one out of 10 had taken no more than basic mathematics
courses in high school, and just over half had
taken calculus. In addition, the number of potential
engineering majors in the top quarter of their
high school graduating class has been on the decline,
as has the average ACT composite score earned by
these students." Mathematics and science are
necessary to transforming every backward economy.
We are not helping enough children to immerse themselves
in the culture of mathematics. Mathematics thinking
is relevant to every area of a modern economy,
not just to engineers. Genetic engineering, and
the problems of the environment will not yield
to voodoo, obeah or the visions of a prophetess.
They will be mastered by a population producing
scientists and environmental engineers.
"The
study suggests the diversity of the future US
engineering workforce is also in question.
A decline in the number of females and racial/ethnic
minority students interested in the field has accompanied
the decrease in the overall number of students
planning an engineering career. The number of female
ACT takers who are considering engineering careers
dropped to a 12-year low in 2002, despite a more
than 40 per cent increase in the overall number
of female test takers since 1991. Only 18 per cent
of the planned engineering majors in the high school
graduating class of 2002 were female. For racial/ethnic
minority students planning an engineering major,
the study points to a big gap between aspirations
and preparation. Although many of these minority
students were very sure they wanted to enter an
engineering programme in college, an alarming number
had not completed any advanced course work in high
school, taking only basic math and science classes.
Among many recommendations to help address the
potential crisis in the engineering workforce,
the study suggests that school districts should
provide challenging science and math courses which
are aligned with college requirements beginning
no later than middle school."
No
child in any secondary school in Trinidad is
likely to have a teacher who can explain how
James
Watt developed the steam engine that was so crucial
to the Industrial Revolution, even if it is very
likely the child will be exposed to the nonsense
that "it is slave profits that caused the
development of the steam engine"! At the University
of Glasgow, Joseph Black was delivering lectures
on his discoveries about latent heat. John Anderson
was at the university experimenting with his model
of an engine. James Watt, an instrument maker was
called in to repair Anderson's engine. A collaboration
involving Black, Watt, Anderson and others over
many years produced a workable engine. No student
here is privy to any of this, but they are regaled
with nonsense about slave profits causing the development
of England. That slave plantation mindset is a
prison for this country. Lee Quan Yew and the Asians
were never in it. The Indian scientists making
over the modern world are not burdened by ignorance
of the meaning of causality or the complexity of
the cultural and institutional conditions that
explain why Spain looted all the gold of the Atzecs
and the Incas to create poverty for 500 years.
Capitalism
and Slavery is not an economic text as Dr. Carrington
asserts, except if it is a text
to help you impoverish a country rich in oil and
gas. 2020 Vision will be a nightmare, unless we
attend to Williams lament: "There is no intellectual
life in Trinidad." Selling gas and using the
proceeds to blind the population to the crippling
ignorance of mathematics, and how it prevents economic
development, or transforming the economy will not
be resolved by trivialising questions about what
explains the Industrial Revolution. The profit
from slavery is not the cause of the Industrial
Revolution in England, or anywhere else.
Dr Morgan Job was a university economics lecturer
and a former Minister in the Ministry of Finance.
( mrganjob@gmail.com). Petroleumworld
not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note: This article was first publish in Trinidad
Express, Wednesday, July 4th 2007. Petroleumworld
reprint this article in the interest of our readers.
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Petroleumworld
07/08/07
Copyright ©2006
Morgan Job . All Rights Reserved.
