Discussing racism in British education from a prision cell in Grenada

An interesting footnote to the intertwined histories of metropolitan discussions of race inequality and global discussions of post-colonialism comes via a piece in the Guardian's education section. Extract:

"In 1970, Bernard Coard, a Grenadian academic and teacher living in the UK, came upon the first study of immigrant children in London ESN [ESN= Educationally Subnormal]schools, conducted by the now defunct Inner London Education Authority. It revealed a shocking picture. In "normal" London schools, 17% of pupils were from ethnic minorities. In ESN schools, that figure was 34% - and four out of five were from the West Indies.

The following year Coard wrote and published a pamphlet entitled: How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System. He identified three factors that were causing black boys, in particular, to fail: "Low expectations on his part about his likely performance in a white-controlled system of education; low motivation to succeed academically because he feels the cards are stacked against him; and low teacher expectations, which affect the amount of effort expended on his behalf by the teacher and also affect his own image of himself and his abilities."

The Guardian published a chapter from the pamphlet on its Comment pages, and a row over the education of black children, and the failures of the system, has raged ever since. Wally Brown, principal of Liverpool Community College, remembers its impact. "That book is a seminal piece. What it says is: if the person who is supposed to be teaching you has no confidence in you, how can you learn? Parents who were fresh from the Caribbean had expectations for their children that were at the opposite end of the spectrum from the teachers'."

"He was the first person to raise this issue," says Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North. "Sadly, if the education authorities and schools had listened to him then, we wouldn't have the crisis we have now."

Coard, now in his 60s, is still passionate about the debate. But he follows it remotely from a prison cell in Grenada. In the late 1970s, Coard returned to Grenada, became active in politics and formed the New Jewel Movement, a Marxist group, with his childhood friend Maurice Bishop. When Bishop became prime minister in 1979, Coard became his deputy and together they reformed the education, health and housing systems in what became known as the Grenadan revolution. But the pair fell out ideologically and, in 1983, there was a coup. Bishop was killed, allegedly by Coard's supporters acting on his orders. Coard took power briefly before Ronald Reagan's administration invaded the island and toppled his government.

It was a Reagan-backed jury that sentenced Coard and 13 others to death. Another three were given lengthy sentences, and together they became known as the Grenadan 17. The death penalties were later commuted to life imprisonment. An Amnesty International report last year condemned the torture they had suffered and claimed that their trial had violated international law. The verdict of an appeal hearing for their release, heard in November last year, is imminent."