From Imperial to Metric

Many years have passed since the idea of St. Lucia moving from the old imperial system of measurement to the new universally accepted metric system has been mooted.
Those behind the change have highlighted its importance, not only because the rest of the world was going in that direction but also it was a better system since it would have a single unit for any physical quantity and not needing conversion factors when making calculations with physical quantities.
All lengths and distances, for example are measured in metres or thousandths of a metre (millimeteres), or thousands of metres (kilometers) and so on.
There is no profusion of different units with different conversion factors such as inches, feet, yards, fathoms, roods, chains, furlongs, miles, nautical miles, leagues, etc.
The metric system, it was said, was the way to go.
So what happened to the movement to educate St. Lucians about the metric system? How could it be that today the country is still heavily using the old imperial system? Why is it island wide education of the metric system is not an ongoing project?
These are questions that come readily to mind when one hears of an attempt by the Government to put in place the metric system next year.
Guy Mayers, Minister for Trade, Industry, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Wednesday of this week told the Chamber of Commerce that the metrication programme is to be in place by the end of 2009.
“We will be moving from pounds and ounces to kilogrammes and grammes, from feet and inches to meters and centimeters, from miles to kilometers and from Fahrenheit to Celsius. The private sector has to prepare itself for this dispensation,” Minister Mayers said.
The questions relating to St. Lucia’s seemingly slow pace at educating its population about the metric system are relevant when one considered that as far back as the late seventies CARICOM introduced the system to the region.

To be fair, St. Lucia has not entirely backed away from the metric system, in that the Land Registry calculates land in hectares and not in square feet, although the Registry gives out calculations in both systems at times.
And our education system, as far back as in the early 1980’s, has been using the metric system alongside the imperial system.
The aspect of worry, considering that the metric system was introduced in this country 30 or so years ago, is that today hundreds of thousands of St. Lucians, if not the majority are unable to understand measurements if given to them in metric.
To say that some sectors of the country have been metricated is all well and good. However it is the metrication of the population that matters.
But there is hope that come the end of 2009 the country would be sufficiently educated to transact trade, commerce and everyday affairs in metric and be on par with the rest of the world that already knows no other system but the metric system.
Hope comes in the form of the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards now in the process of putting a board of directors in place that would put some order in how to handle the metrication programme for the entire island.
That board, we understand is expected to be formed either at the end of the first quarter of this year or into the second quarter.
We are hoping that even then, the Government gives the Bureau all the help it needs to get their metrication programme up and running as quickly as possibly. What we are afraid of and hoping will not happen is that come the end of 2009, St. Lucia will still legally be using the imperial system.