The Editor, Sir:

In response to Esther Tyson's Sunday Gleaner column:

Hello Mrs Tyson,

I had to drop you a line to give you my support on this matter. Yourself and Martin Henry penned excellent articles on August 3 in The Sunday Gleaner, setting out the true facts and more important, the direct implications, of the government's scandalous under-funding of our school system, and challenging the prime minister's unfortunate comments.

I hope the clarity with which you set out your school's efforts, on its own funding for the most part, to carry on with the non-curricular activities that all schools must engage in, will help in the fight for more funds, AND to clear the good name of our schools. Our schools and their top managers are the heroes, not the villains of this piece. It is scandalous that successive government education ministers all provide eloquent promises, but little funding, that in the particularly inflationary scenario of 2008, are woefully inadequate, to put it mildly.

Not surprisingly, Jamaica is 70 places below Barbados in the UNDP Education ranking index, a 'small island' that we used to mock for its size. Good for them. Keep that statistic to throw in the face of the minister when he comes to you with his false promises. Neither party is immune from these deficiencies. As I see it, the disgusting thing is that as soon as we hear the word 'election', funds appear out of thin air, endless ads appear on TV and on radio at outrageous rates per minute of airtime, but all readily paid for. 'Donations' appear out of thin air as well. That, Mrs Tyson, is where their interest lies. Not in us, but in their power. That is our curse, the politicians who behave as if there is no tomorrow.

Please, don't give up the fight though.

We depend on you for sending us students that somehow make it through the mire of the secondary system.

I am, etc.,

KARL AIKEN,

Lecturer at a certain

institution