Is the Trinidad and Tobago education system structured to facilitate optimum human capital development ? New findings on the relationship between education structures and outcomes from National and International Assessments

One of the more critical roles of the education system is to develop human capital. Low quality, unequal human capital development remains an important issue for Trinidad and Tobago as it seeks to align its economic structure with the emerging requirements of a knowledge society. The education system inherited from British colonial rule was noticeably elitist and examination-oriented, designed to filter, segregate and retain students based on perceived meritocracy, as defined solely by performance in public examinations. Significant features of this inherited differentiated system include segregated schools and embedded institutional practices and beliefs supportive of academic tracking, streaming and setting. Despite government‟s commitment to a seamless system, the legitimacy of a differentiated system remains high among the populace, with a persistent concern for the fate of “the top 20% of the ability group”. The question then becomes, are the country’s needs (and that of all ability groups) best served by a differentiated or non-differentiated school system? In other words, is the current design of the education system the best strategy for efficient and equitable human resource-centred development? The issue of structure and outcome in education systems has emerged internationally with the growth of regional and international assessments, which allow comparisons and benchmarking across countries and education systems. High quality differentiated systems as in Germany can be compared with high quality nondifferentiated systems as in Finland. Trinidad and Tobago is currently enrolled in the PIRLS and PISA international assessments, and benchmarking data is available from the 1990/1991 IEA study of reading at ages 9 and 14 and the 2006 PIRLS. We use this information along with data from national assessments to analyze, benchmark, and compare outcomes from the differentiated education system in Trinidad and Tobago. Is the Trinidad and Tobago education system structured to facilitate optimum human capital development 3 Is the Trinidad and Tobago education system structured to facilitate optimum human capital development? New findings on the relationship between education structures and outcomes from National and International Assessments Human capital development as promise and challenge The human capital requirements of globalization and the information age have placed great demands upon economic and educational structures of both developing and developed countries (Cogburn & Adeya, 1999). Rapid changes in the economy and in the nature of work have forced nations to transform education and training systems to produce individuals that can contribute productively in this new age (Miller, 1996; OECD, 2007). In practical terms, this has meant implementing education reform for lifelong learning, universal secondary education, and greater access to post-secondary education. For the Anglophone Caribbean, the response of the education sector has been somewhat varied, with limitations increasingly apparent in several areas (Miller, 1996; Di Gropello, 2006). Compared with its CARICOM 1 partners, the economic situation in Trinidad and Tobago might appear favourable; however, the sustainability of current successes are intertwined with a dwindling natural resource base and the challenge of developing a high quality human resource base. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Trinidad and Tobago‟s economic indicators continued to improve with a decline in unemployment and increase in GDP (Elías & Rojas-Suárez, 2006). In the preceding decade, increased revenue from LNG and petrochemical production partly compensated for declining revenue from reduced oil production. Nevertheless, despite expansion in manufacturing and tourism, the Trinidad and Tobago economy remains strongly reliant on revenue from hydrocarbons and indeed the relative growth in manufacturing has been significantly slower (Artana et al., 2007). Trinidad and Tobago outlined its vision for the future in an elaborate Vision 2020 planning exercise; documenting a pathway to developed nation status, built on five pillars: competitive business, caring society, innovative people, effective government and sound infrastructure and environment. Vision 2020 recognizes the centrality of the human resource to Trinidad and Tobago‟s future, acknowledging the limitations of a small population compared with the new rising stars in the world‟s economy. The Vision 202