A path breaking study by McKinsey & Company for the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) repeated what has now become received wisdom: ‘The capacity of countries … to compete in the global knowledge economy increasingly depends on whether they can meet a fast-growing demand for high-level skills. This in turn hinges on significant improvements in the quality of schooling outcomes and a more equitable distribution in learning opportunities’ (How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top. September 2007).
Partly for this reason, everywhere, even among education systems considered the best in the world, there is talk of the need for reform, and this and forthcoming articles will deal with aspects of this matter in relation to Guyana. The issue of study support in the form of ‘extra lessons’ is again holding the public’s attention and therefore provides an appropriate starting place.
I believe that as we go forward, without gainsaying our specific conditions, we should try to learn from the best. On the matter at hand, the abovementioned study claimed that ‘Intervention at the level of the school prevents clusters of failure from emerging in the system. However, the most effective schools and school systems monitor and intervene at the level of individual students.’
The 2015 report of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) stated that with a mean score of 613 points, equivalent to almost three years of schooling above the OECD average, Shanghai (China) had the highest scores in mathematics. In descending order Singapore, Hong Kong (China) Taipei, Korea, Macao (China), Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands were the other top ten performers in mathematics.
In terms of reading, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Korea were the top five performers while Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Finland were the top five performers in science.
Even if at this stage it is mere wishful thinking, most of us would like to see Guyana in the top groups. Quite apart from the financial inputs this kind of result requires, how do a few of the top countries, many of whom are in the McKinsey study, deal with the critical issue of intervention at the level of the individual child?
In The Best School System in the World (http://asiasociety.org/shanghai-worlds-best-school-system) Heather Singmaster observed that in Shanghai, ‘An estimated 80 percent of students attend night and weekend “cram schools” to ensure that they pass. This comes in addition to nightly homework and extracurricular activities.” This, she claims, makes the life of a Chinese student so overwhelming the reforms now in place are partly focused on reducing student work load.
I pointed out in a letter in this newspaper (‘Study support’ could improve educational outcomes. SN 15/10/2010) and as the PISA scores above bear out, Japan has one of the world’s best school systems. Primary and secondary enrollment is nearly 100%, the dropout rate is about 3%, illiteracy is nonexistent and about 50% of secondary students go on to university or junior colleges.
Yet, the Japanese Ministry of Education reported in 1996 that, ‘More than 40% of elementary school children in the metropolitan Tokyo area and 77.2% of junior high students attend juku (cram schools)’, and in 2009 one researcher noted that ‘juku attendance in elementary school years (especially grades 4-6) in Tokyo has increased massively’ (http://ssj.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/archives/2009).
The success of the Japan school system is partly based upon intensive extra lessons. But let us turn to the United Kingdom which stands at about twenty-sixth in the PISA rankings and is perhaps a country to which we can better relate.
The UK Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills longitudinal study Learning out of hours: the quality and management of study support in secondary schools recognised that many schools invest heavily in arranging out-of-hours learning activities and many teachers (usually paid to participate in these schemes) contribute their time and expertise generously to them. To strengthen the system, the report encouraged schools to do more to make sure that the needs of pupils and provisions within the community are complementary with existing school activities.
Please note that here the responsibility rests with the schools not only to organise but also to try to align community provision for study support. ‘Above all …. aim to raise achievement’ (DfEE, 1989).
The McKinsey report claimed that Finland has gone further than any other system in ensuring that there is a uniformly high performance across its entire system. We need to note that both socially and economically, Finland is a highly developed society. For instance, it has a per capita income (ppp) of US$38,271 and spends an average in 2011 of US$11,000 per child on primary and secondary education while Guyana has a per capita of US$3,344 and spends about US$556 on average 2012 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics).
Finnish children start preschool at age six and school at age seven, three years
later than many of their European counterparts. The Finnish child receives fewer hours of instruction between the ages of seven and 14 than any other child in an OECD country. Yet by age 15, they are at the top the world in the PISA assessments of reading, mathematics, science and problem solving (McKinsey, op cit).
According to the report, part of the explanation is to be found in the fact that Finland has developed a highly effective system of interventions to support individual students within schools. For example, each school employs a number of special education teachers, on an average of about one special education teacher to every seven class teachers.
A high volume of students (some 30 percent a year) take part in the programme and the best students are also, on occasion, sent for additional instruction. These teachers provide support one-on-one or in small groups to students who are at risk of falling behind mainly in the subjects of Finnish language and mathematics. The special education teachers are given an additional year of teacher training, paid slightly higher salaries and work with a wider support team – psychologists, nurses, special needs advisors.
Many things can and will be said about the information provided here. However, as the McKinsey report stated and our examples suggest, the school systems that are at the top of their game do provide differing forms of special interventions at the level of the individual child. These range from intensive extra lessons to the more sophisticated Finish model. If Guyana’s education system is to contribute to its being able to successfully compete on the global stage; it appears to me that we will have to make a choice.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
