Music education is one of those terms that is used in a variety of contexts and has therefore acquired a range of meanings; for the purpose of this discussion I shall take the term to refer to those musical studies and activities in schools that are available to all children and constitute part of liberal or general education. It is readily apparent from a survey of educational systems that in most countries, music features as a component of students’ education at some stage of their compulsory schooling.

Museums as we know them today are a recent phenomenon that reflects the democratization of culture in modern times. Although the history of the modern museum rightly begins in 1793 with the establishment of the Louvre Museum in Paris during the French Revolution, to make the royal collections and other confiscated items available for public viewing, museums in general were passive receptacles of collections that were in effect seen by only a privileged few.

No single theme in arts education is evident in the articles in this issue of the Caribbean Journal of Education, but many of the contributors have examined or made reference to recent changes, devel­opments, and future challenges. As this issue comes at the beginning of a new millennium and is the first issue of CJE to be exclusively devoted to the arts, it is not unexpected that contributors have taken the opportunity to reflect and critically examine arts education in Caribbean and other societies.

This paper seeks to examine trends in the perfonnance of Jamaican can­didates in mathematics at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. This will be done through an examination of perfonnance in the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSA T), the Caribbean Secondary Educa­tion Certificate (CSEC) Examination, and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), respectively. The views expressed in this paper are my own, and are not necessarily those of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). 

Do we have a culture of cruelty? To answer that question, one of the first things we would need to know is what we mean by a culture. I use the word culture as some anthropologists have used it, to mean a system of meaning. It is a system whereby we give meaning to our daily lives and we express that meaning symbolically. Let me give you an example. There is nothing particular about eating. Described as a physi­cal act, eating is simply masticating-you put food in your mouth, you masticate, you swallow, and that is eating.

The question was posed recently by a group of teachers in the secon­dary schools: "Why are today's teenagers so difficult to cope with? Why can't they confonn as we did in our time?" This is a question, I am sure, that teachers all over the country are asking. But in order to begin to answer this question we have first to recognize that children today live and interact in a societty that is totally different from the one in which we were raised.

PALS Jamaica emerged as an attempt on the part of a concerned citizen to address the growing problem of conflict and violence in Jamaican society. This individual, convinced by the increasing evidence that peo­ple could be empowered to prevent acts of violence, sought the support of those of like mind. Together, they searched for a programme that would provide the framework for equipping children and the wider society with the knowledge and skills for successful conflict resolution and violence prevention. These men of vision created PALS-Peace and Love in Schools. 

The editor of the Jamaica Journal of Education and Teachers' A id, in an issue published in August 1909, included the story of a certain squire who had violent objections to anyone invading his pew. On one occa­sion, at the conclusion of a service, he went to the vicar and complained bitterly of a stranger who had unknowingly intruded. It was a very large pew and the only occupants had been the squire and the unwelcome visitor. 

The Report of the Task Force on New Directions in Teacher Educa­tion dated 26 June 1996 has stated clearly the colleges' mandate for the next five years. They must begin to grant degrees in the four major programmes offered by the colleges, as Professor Errol Miller has reiterated. This is not merely recommendation but reality, because IO years before, Mico College moved into the BEd in Special Educa­tion (one programme); G. C.