(Jamaica Gleaner) Come the new academic year, the Ministry of Education will begin to roll out a specific tutorial programme tailored for boys, which will be more practical-oriented.
Speaking at the education ministry’s Heroes Circle offices in Kingston on Friday, Clement Radcliffe, acting chief education officer, revealed that there was mounting pressure to address the issue of why boys continue to perform below par.
For several years, there has been a growing concern that boys continue to lag behind girls academically, with examination results at all levels consistently having the girls outdoing the boys two to one.
“The Ministry of Education has been utilising all their efforts to determine how boys learn from the data that we have been reviewing. We have also been looking at international research and trends, and these will be used to determine the methodologies which will be used going forward,” said Radcliffe.
He said the results of the research indicated that boys do indeed learn differently from girls, and that they responded to a practical-oriented curriculum, delivering much better results.
He said as part of this new initiative, there would be significant training of teachers, both at the teachers’ college level and among those already in the system.
Radcliffe acknowledged that there would be a challenge in implementing the programme in co-educational institutions, but said a suitable solution was being explored.
Education Minister Ronald Thwaites added that the results from this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) were a typical example of girls continuing to excel far above the level of boys.
He noted that in CSEC English literature, of the 3,843 students who passed with grade one, 1,079 were boys and 2,764 girls.
“More than double the girls got a grade one … . I wonder who the girls are going to marry,” Thwaites said.
“There is a deficit here, and we have to make sure that we pay particular attention to this.”
He said, of interest, the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) results were improving, therefore, there was a breakdown between GSAT and CSEC.
“There is something not happening in our secondary schools that we need to analyse very carefully,” he said.
The minister added that the problem must be the concern of every single individual, and, in particular, the parents of boys must ensure that they are avid about ensuring the performance of their sons.
Thwaites also revealed that for the new academic year, the ministry would be engaging “strong leaders” from the cadet corps and scouts movement, with the intention of expanding uniformed groups in every school.
“We have evidence that the students that are engaged in structured activity, particularly uniformed activity, tend to be better disciplined, organised, and do better, and are more socially oriented,” he said.