And one government leader with a clear idea of where those problems rest is Defense and Sports Minister, Cordel Hyde. A former Education Minister himself, Hyde rendered a stinging assessment of Belize's current standing in education in a speech he delivered on Tuesday at a security strategy conference. The speech, explosive in many regards, didn't attract any press coverage, but word of it filtered out and tonight we have obtained a copy.
Hyde noted that almost doubling the education budget from $65 million in 1998 to $122 million in 2006 has not meant improvement in quality and output as only 81% of schoolchildren reach grade 5; only 35% of them children finish primary school in 8 years; and 5000 children between the ages of 5 and 12 are not enrolled in school; while less than half of secondary school students finish high school in 4 years; only 43% of children aged 13 to 16 are enrolled in high school and 1,900 children drop out of primary and secondary school each year.
Looking to health, Hyde also drew the conclusion that while the under five mortality rate is an above-average 19 in every 1000 live births, according to him, "the majority of these under five mortalities are caused from chronic malnutrition." Hyde also lamented that 20% of all births are to teenage mothers and 60% of them say the pregnancies were unplanned and undesired.
Hyde also noted that less than half of all households have adequate access to drinking water while almost 50% of the population still uses pit latrines.
And taking on a reform tack for all this, Hyde concluded that politicians cannot be allowed to continue to spend unlimited sums of money on elections because, "special interests (have been allowed) to undermine our democracy for too long." Hyde also warned his government to, "get the oil thing right," ensuring that the oil revenue is used for those who need it most warning that it cannot, be_ "another Intelco, or BTL, or DFC."
And we'll note that there's great gains to be made for diagnosing the Musa administration for any of the diversity of morbid symptom which it is now beset by, when his colleague Espat made similarly directed if more general remarks about reform, the Opposition pointed out that both sat in the collectively responsible Cabinet when those decisions were made.
