Dear Editor,
This week the CXC results will be released for 2023. These student results would determine the direction of our children’s future, whether they get good jobs, or can continue to do post-secondary education. But while these results will tell us about student performance, they will also tell us about the effectiveness of our schools, and how well the schools are doing a good job at providing a rich education for our students.
There are instances of some schools having a high percentage of graduate teachers, they are provided with all kinds of resource materials by the Ministry, yet there is a high percentage of student failures. Why? We need to do some root cause analysis, as part of ratcheting up our ongoing school accountability system and education reform. As our Ministry of Educa-tion continues its quest for “Excellence Through Equity,” we need to implement some measures similar to those done by the USA in the landmark “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) initiative which has dramatically transformed American education.
In Guyana, there seemed to have been a misunderstanding of what the concept of NCLB was all about. NCLB was never about social promotion of children who failed. It was the most rigorous, dramatic, earth-shaking federal accountability system ever implemented in US education. NCLB required all states in America to disaggregate their student achievement data by subgroups – Whites, Blacks, His-panics, Asians, Native Americans, Students with Disabilities, Students with Limited English Proficiency (See Glatthorn and Jailall, The Principal as Curriculum Leader: Shaping What is Taught and Tested, 2008).
The disaggregation of data was meant to track whether all students are making progress, and whether schools are improving their performance every year. In the old days, no one batted an eyelid whether students in a school were passing or failing, but NCLB changed all of that. No longer could any staff be sitting on the payroll waiting for retirement. Everyone was now accountable for results. As Guyana emerges to be an economy transformed by its oil riches, as enormous shortages of skilled labour loom large, as we seek to avoid the “Dutch Disease” and maintain a diversified and strong non-oil economy, the education system needs major realignment and revamping. It cannot be business as usual.
We have to shed all those outdated, colonial-era practices that are irrelevant as we build a new, modern twenty-first century education infrastructure. What NCLB did in the USA was to make school boards, school principals, teachers, and parents accountable for results. No longer could you blame the students and their parents for student failures at national exams. NCLB placed much focus on the quality and effectiveness of school administration, faithful implementation of the school curriculum infused with technology, improvements in teaching and learning, and the use of data-driven interventions.
In Guyana, the colonial “methuselah” practice of teachers with the most years of experience being made principals is an outdated notion. In the USA, for instance, states require a Principal or Assistant Principal to have special licensure in school Administration, usually requiring a Master’s Degree. Maybe a name change from “head teacher” to “Principal” might be a nice upgrade of terminology. I hope the Ministry of Education publishes the CXC results from all high schools so we may start this conversation about Annual School Report Cards and school accountability.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Jailall
