Guyana’s CSEC results have now been made public, and while they reflect a decline in performance over previous years that will probably not excite the anxiety in the Ministry of Education that otherwise might have been the case. The downswing is almost certainly explained by the pandemic, more especially as the rest of the region suffered a similar decline. Nevertheless, this country still emerged as the top performer, with an average of 87%.
According to Chief Education Officer, Dr Marcel Hutson, the overall pass rate at the General and Technical proficiencies for Grades 1 to 3 was 66.36%. There had been improved performance he said, in four subjects, while in six subjects there was no change. He noted outstanding performances in eight subjects where 90% and over attained Grades 1 to 3. Included in these were Agricultural Science (Double Award) with 93.14%, Information Technology with 92.59%, Physical Education & Sports with 99.28% and Theatre Arts with 100%.
The largest number of students will sit English Language and Mathematics. Where the first of these is concerned there was a 68% pass rate, and in the case of the second, 31%. This was a decline from 78% and 48% respectively last year, which must be a source of some perturbation to the Ministry, the pandemic notwithstanding. This will be particularly the case where Maths is concerned, considering the effort that had been expended in previous years to try and upgrade performance levels in that subject area.
Once again it was Guyana which appears to have supplied the region’s top student in the form of Sarena Razak of Queen’s College who secured 19 Grade Ones, 2 Grade Twos and a Grade Three. She was followed by other outstanding performers who obtained results such as 18 and 17 Grade One passes. While all the high-flyers deserve commendation, Parmesh Ramgobin of the Anna Regina Multilateral School who secured 15 Grade Ones and 5 Grade Twos stands out. His father is a fisherman and the family did not have the money for extra lessons and examination fees, among other things, and so he made and sold plantain chips to earn extra income to pay for his education. It has the echoes of an earlier era when an older generation which did not have electricity in the home would sit under the street lights to read their books and do their homework.
But one has to ask a question which has been asked many times before, and that is why are students allowed to take so many CSECs, apart from getting the kudos which attends such exceptional results. Most of the very successful students have decided on career trajectories in the highly skilled professions which will demand an academic background. But for anyone looking specifically at the academic end of the examination spectrum, not all subjects are equal. To take two subjects at random, why should it be necessary for the top students to sit Office Administration, for example, or Textiles, Clothing and Fashion, rather than do more in-depth study of some of the core subjects? Or is it that CSEC is simply too easy for our high-flyers, and so they need to fill in their time?
Of course the Ministry is largely concerned with the mass of examinees and the average results obtained, rather than with the crème de la crème, which represents only a fraction of them. Minister Priya Manickchand at the time of the announcement of the results said the Ministry would continuously attempt to rectify the difficulties faced by the education system.
She adverted to the differences between schools, and the resources with which each was endowed, something the pandemic had made more apparent, but in terms of its impact, she said, “We don’t have the choice of being soft …”
Last month, however, CXC Registrar and Chief Executive, Dr Wayne Wesley had a different take on the issue of the CSEC exam results. He said that much of what is taught in school is no longer relevant in the working world, and that students were overburdened by extra lessons as teachers tried to complete curricula which were content focused.
“We have an attitude for extra lessons,” he was quoted as saying; “We are pressuring the students, giving them information overload and when they are stressed out we wonder what is happening.” He proposed the reconfiguration of school syllabuses to teach core competencies rather than content coverage, and that it was these competencies which would be examined. Dr Wesley said that under the CXC 2021-2025 Strategic Plan, the regional body was engaged in research and development to test whether shortening content was needed to capture a “critical body of knowledge.”
Perhaps all this was as much of a surprise to the local Ministry of Education as it was to the interested public. In the first place, in relation to what he had to say about extra lessons, his analysis had no relevance here in terms of what drives the phenomenon, although it may well apply to other parts of the region. He may rest assured that if, for the sake of argument, competencies rather than content were to be introduced to the CSEC syllabuses, extra lessons would flourish in the same way locally as they have always done.
He did not mention either that the vast majority of schools in this country, at least, do not have the resources and cannot accommodate the timetabling arrangements necessary to cater for students sitting 20 subjects and the like at a time. With these kinds of totals students would have to resort to extra lessons for some of the subjects.
But that aside, one can only ask why Dr Wesley by implication does not appear to think that all those CSEC subjects relating to business and office management, etc, which were introduced precisely so that students hoping to graduate into the world of work would have some kind of preparation, are not achieving what they were supposed to do. Some of those subjects produced impressive results.
A more fundamental issue pertains to what Dr Wesley means by competencies. These will vary from subject to subject, and for some, at least, of the traditional academic subjects, competencies however defined cannot be divorced from content. Furthermore, such subjects are not necessarily directly relevant in the working world, although they may help; they are a foundation for study at a higher level.
To take the example of History and Social Studies, before there can be any analysis (assuming that is what would be meant by competency in this context) students would have to be familiar with information on a particular topic; there is no analysing in the abstract unless there is a content base first. While it is important in the modern world to make assessments about the plethora of information with which we are deluged daily, to repeat, the art of learning judgement is rooted first in a familiarity with content.
That said, every subject area will be different in terms of its demands, and one can only hope that firstly, CXC will provide us with some more detailed explanation of what they mean by competencies in any given area, and when they have a draft of what they are seeking, they will supply it not only to the various subject panels but also to the educational authorities in the different territories for discussion and response.
Education is a slow, cumulative business, and too many fundamental reforms too quickly can be counter-productive. In terms of results, the Ministry will make more progress working on equalising resources for schools and confronting the teaching problem, than CXC will by revamping all the syllabuses at once in a radical way.