UNCUT: The Patterson Report Did Not Address Academic Slaughter by Timetable Injustice

A Well-Intentioned but Incomplete Report

The 2021 Patterson Commission Report on education reform in Jamaica was a well-meaning and long-overdue initiative. It offered broad recommendations on governance, teacher training, early childhood education, and funding. However, it overlooked a critical issue that academically slaughters students daily: the widespread use of "pools" in high school timetabling, which causes significant industrial-scale injustice to students.

What Are "Pools" and Why Do They Matter?

"Pools" refer to the administrative practice of grouping students-often by grade and subject-into large, supposedly manageable clusters to build school timetables. While intended to improve efficiency, in practice, pools often create confusion, demotivate students, and restrict their ability to study subjects aligned with their interests and ambitions. This approach prioritises resource management over student choice and learning needs, effectively stripping students of agency in their education.

Real-Life Impact on Students

Third-formers drowning in ‘pools’—Jamaican high schools must stop this academic slaughter! Credit: Shuttershock

Consider a bright third-form student keen on science but forced to take Principles of Business (Parents will feel 'sort of good' with Bus Ed., Law, or HSB) because the pool does not allow Physics. Or a language-loving pupil shoehorned into Visual Arts while French and Spanish classes run half-empty. Even worse are the streams where multiple science subjects clash on the timetable, making it impossible for ambitious students to pursue the full suite of STEM subjects essential for scholarships or careers in medicine, engineering, computing, or research and development.

Why Does This Problem Persist?

Despite decades of complaints from educators, parents, students, and Ministry officials, this travesty continues. Pools have become a bureaucratic crutch -- a way to avoid the hard work of learner-centred, flexible timetabling. Even more troubling is the lack of political will to confront the structural bias and injustice they represent.

Disproportionate Impact on Non-Elite Schools

Pools do not exist in a vacuum. They disproportionately disadvantage students from non-elite schools, where resources are already scarce and timetables are often cobbled together with more emphasis on staff convenience than learner needs. Pools represent institutional laziness and educational fatalism: “You’ll get what you get, and be grateful.” Our brightest and most motivated young Jamaicans(and increasingly, other CARICOM youngsters) deserve far more than that.

The Patterson Report’s Missed Opportunity

While the Patterson Report correctly noted that too many Jamaican students are “underperforming academically,” it failed to interrogate why. It made no mention of the psychospiritual toll inflicted by a system that repeatedly tells children their dreams are secondary to administrative convenience. Timetables built with pools reinforce the falsehood that some students are simply “not meant” to study certain subjects-regardless of aptitude or interest.

Unequal Effects Across Schools

This injustice is not evenly distributed. At so-called “traditional” high schools-especially those with strong alumni and vocal PTAs-the problem is far less acute. These schools can often afford to hire part-time teachers or offer parallel classes to avoid conflicts. They also face stronger pushback from empowered parents. But at many rural and newly upgraded high schools, pools are a life sentence, not a life solution.

Practical Consequences for Students’ Futures

What does this mean in practical terms? It means a student who dreams of becoming an engineer but cannot access Physics or Technical Drawing at CSEC level. It means sixth-formers forced to choose between Chemistry or Economics, not for pedagogical reasons but because the timetable demands it. It means students arriving at university with under-prepared transcripts and diminished confidence.

Educational Sabotage and National Development

Let me be clear: this is not a mere administrative hiccup. This is educational sabotage, plain and simple. Every child denied the chance to study what they are capable of mastering represents a missed opportunity for national development. Every school that clings to pools out of inertia or fear of change is complicit in this betrayal.

The Way Forward: Learner-Centred Timetabling

The Ministry of Education must issue firm guidance-and offer concrete support-to phase out pool-driven timetabling practices. There are numerous successful models, both local and international, for learner-driven scheduling that balances staff workload with student choice. Technology exists. Expertise exists. What we lack is resolve.

Conclusion: Restoring Student Agency

Until the Patterson Report is revised or supplemented to include this glaring omission, its credibility as a comprehensive roadmap for reform remains incomplete. No report that fails to address the centrality of student agency in subject selection can claim to be serious about equity or excellence.

Our students are not cogs in a machine. They are individuals with dreams, aptitudes, and futures that matter. To continue shackling them to “pools” is to undermine every other reform we might dare to pursue.

End the timetable injustice. Smash the pools. Let our students soar.

by Dennis A. Minott, PhD, MISES.

A-QuEST

May 10, 2025