Amid criticism new Minister of Education Priya Manickchand is sticking to her guns in implementing the four-month long pilot project in 36 secondary schools throughout the country to reverse dismal performances in Mathematics and English at CXC.
The minister said the 30% pass rate in Mathematics the country received last year at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination was very bad and as such the ministry could not sit back and allow this crop of children to go down the same road, hence the new project. And it was not a project that was just pulled out of thin air, Manickchand said, as there was consultation with teachers and an attempt had been made to have parents involved. It is hoped that there would be an increase of 20% in the pass rate for Mathematics at the next CSEC (CXC) examination.
During an interview with the Sunday Stabroek the minister acknowledged that she has heard some of the criticisms, one of which was that an entire year was needed for the programme to become successful. Her response was that while she would be the first to say it would take five years to prepare a student for CSEC, “I wasn’t prepared to watch these students going down the drain simply because we only have four months left.”
“I always knew we were doing poorly in Maths; I didn’t realise it was that poorly and I asked for the results. They said thirty per cent last year, so it means seventy per cent of every one hundred students in Mathematics were not passing,” the minister told the Sunday Stabroek in an interview.
“That is not good at all; it was very, very bad [but] it is not different from what the Caribbean was getting, I think the highest across the Caribbean was thirty eight percent in Jamaica,” she pointed out.
The country did better in the area of English with a 60% pass rate.
Some 4,000 students will be targeted in the various schools from all ten administrative regions. All the schools picked are ones which have trained Mathematics and English teachers, and the schools also had to get a percentage pass in the two subject areas in previous years to indicate that there was a foundation.
The Minister emphasised that the ministry’s specialists at NCERD sat down with the Mathematics teachers in an effort to ascertain some of the problems faced by them and by the students.
It was found that not all the students had textbooks, past papers, geometry sets and calculators.
“They said to us these kids are having a difficulty when they get into the exam room because most of them are borrowing these things on the morning of the exams and they don’t know how to use them… they are wasting a lot of time and they are coming up with the wrong answers simply because they don’t know how to use [them].”
The teachers also raised the absence of graph paper, which is used in the exam room and the fact that some students were unable to practise outside the room because they had none. The Minister said after listening to the teachers the ministry felt that those were small things that could be fixed.
The teachers were also asked to identify any problem they may have in delivering their lessons and a few of them listed those and are going to be helped by the ministry’s specialists. However, for the project to be successful the minister said that there is need for a five-people partnership which consists of the government, which provides the resources, teachers who have committed to the programme, parents, students and the monitors.
The students have been addressed and they were told what is needed from them to ensure that they achieve pass rates in the two subjects, which would mean that there is need for lifestyle change.
“It means coming to school on time, it means not having an attitude if teacher says come to school on Saturday or Sunday… it means giving up some of your leisure time, it really means focusing and having everything focus on CXC for the next four months,” the Minister said.
Parents were also addressed and they were asked to be supportive of their children by creating an environment at home for them to study, easing them off the heavy workload at home for the next four months and ensuring they had their meals, among other things. Then there are the volunteers, one of whom will be placed at each school and be the liaison between the ministry and the school to ensure that the teachers are following the plan.
“These volunteer support people are going to be ensuring that the plan is stuck to; they are also going to be the teachers‘ link to us, for example, they are going to say to us that the students received all the material that [was] sent out and [it is] not just stuck up in a cupboard somewhere…”
‘Are we going to see results?’
That is a question Minister Manickchand said she could not answer definitively, but she is confident that there would be positive results. While they hope to have a pass rate of 50% in Maths at the next sitting, she was told even if they received a 40% pass rate it would mean that they did “massively well considering the time line.”
Should the project prove successful, then it would be rolled out nationally with all the schools and students given the material.
Asked about trained teachers for all the schools as a lack of teachers is one of the issues raised by many who have thrown cold water on the project, the Minister said that right now 70% of the teachers countrywide are trained. She said in terms of Mathematics the ministry is running a non-graduate programme where persons are trained, and she is about to get the figures for how many Maths teachers can be found at each school. The Minister said she has been told that people are not opting to learn Mathematics and Science subjects, and as such a way has to be found to attract persons, and it would not be through salaries. The non-graduate programme is an 18 month one and the Minister said she has been told “that once you do that programme you are solidly trained in Mathematics.”
The programme has been around for the past few years. Teachers from areas which have a shortage of Maths teachers would be invited to do the non-graduate programme. “But we haven’t decided yet what we will do to attract those persons.” the Minister said.
Pressed about the fact that many have argued that teachers‘ salaries are very low, Minister Manickchand noted that having good conditions for employees is always something on the mind of the government and something that it will work towards. But this, she said, has to be done in the context of the country’s budget, and while they would want to give teachers, nurses and policemen among others, increases, there still is a lot of developmental work to be done in the country. As a result she said she has to rely on what the Minister of Finance says that they could afford.
“For me I would like to see how we can make sure we develop our teachers too, so it is not only fixing their wallets, it is fixing and helping out and supporting various other aspects of their lives,” the minister added.
And according to the Maninckchand, even if the project does not achieve the pass rate envisioned it would not mean it was a failure, but rather that the time was not sufficient.
She noted, however, that there would never be a four-month programme again as those who will be entering fifth form would be on a year‘s programme, and the students in the lower classes right down to grade seven would have more years.
“So in about four, five years I don’t expect us to be seeing 30% pass at all, so even if this doesn’t work I am positive that in four to five years once we roll this out and stick to it we will not be seeing 30% pass.”
