Amid a furore caused by a Linden teacher refusing to promote children he deemed as illiterate, Education Minister Shaik Baksh yesterday declared that the automatic promotion policy which aims to stem school drop-outs will remain in force.
According to a release from the Ministry of Education, Baksh was at the time addressing hundreds of graduands of the Secondary Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP) at Queen’s College. He said that some headteachers, parents and sections of the media are oblivious to the trust of the policy. He promised to hold a press briefing to clarify issues.
The minister pointed out that students who fail their end-of-year examinations should not be punished by making them repeat their class, noting that about 80 per cent of these students then drop out of the school system.
The release noted that the Ministry of Education has instututionalised remediation programmes at Grades Eight and Nine in Mathematics and English during the school year and the August holidays targeting academically weak students. The intention of these programmes, the minister said is to transform low achievers to acceptable secondary school standards.
In defending this policy earlier, Baksh said that the old tradition of parents getting to know of their children’s performance at the end of the school year must stop and they should begin monitoring their children on a term-by-term basis.
“The minister argued that if this is done, he is confident that students would perform better at school and there would be no call for them to repeat their class”, the release said.
The latter, he said has been wrecking students’ confidence and self-esteem, often leading to them dropping- out of school with no certificate to gain employment.
Baksh also noted that his ministry is aware of the high drop-out rate of students at Grades Seven to Nine and has introduced the Secondary School Competency Certificate Programme to tackle this problem.
Since the incident at Linden, The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) has warned the head teacher of Christianburg Wismar Secondary School to stick to the guidelines set out in the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy, while he maintains that he will do whatever it takes to ensure that students attending his school reach the higher levels of the education system.
Christianburg Wismar Secondary School Head Teacher, Cleveland Thomas was summoned to a meeting with the disciplinary committee of the TSC last week Monday to defend his position of not complying with the policy.
Last week Wednesday Thomas received a letter from the TSC which advised that he adhere to the set policy and guidelines. “Considering the peculiar situation of the Christianburg, Wismar Secondary School and the area it served you are advised to make full use of the guidelines which are attached to the circular and pay particular attention to the remedial work necessary and maintain proper records of same that can be presented whenever necessary,” the letter stated.
Indicating that he was not willing to release his next action plan, Thomas insisted that there must be some amendment to the policy.
“I prefer that they have a seven-year cycle which would accommodate some students who are likely to fail at some point, they need to look at policy and tweak it a bit, modify it.”
He asserted that he and the staff along with the parents of students are looking to churn out students who are nation builders and not nation degraders.
