The recently released CAPRI and UNICEF report, Room for Improvement: The Gap Between Public Spending and Child Outcomes in Jamaica, confirms what many Jamaicans have long feared: our education system is consuming significant public investment while failing to deliver commensurate outcomes.

Jamaica allocates roughly 16–17 per cent of government expenditure and about 5 per cent of GDP to education—levels comparable to some of the world’s top-performing systems. Yet students continue to leave school with serious literacy and numeracy deficiencies, and the country records just 7.1 years of effective learning out of an expected 11.4.

This is not merely disappointing; it is a national crisis.