In a recent feature on education the Economist wrote that a mass of research showed “Developing brainiacs is the most reliable way to stoke economic growth.” While the present government does understand that the evolving economy requires skills which do not exist at the moment, and has put resources into offering online scholarships in a variety of fields, this is like a quick fix at the tertiary level. It is not a long-term answer to raising educational levels across the board or producing the ‘brainiacs’ a society needs to make a serious impact on the economy. The problem with education is that necessary reforms instituted by one government, say, might not reveal their advantages until several years down the line, and this administration in particular is allergic to long-term thinking.
In a separate article the periodical looked at the matter of diet and intelligence, something which in one sense our politicians here are aware of. They do recognize that children suffering from poor nutrition will not be able to perform well at school. However, that is to leave the problem until it is too late. “[A] better diet for pregnant mothers and infants would eventually make humanity more intelligent,” said the Economist. In other words, in our context the government should take another look at the cost of living issue. Fancy new roads are no substitute for infants who receive adequate macro and micronutrients.
As for the other conclusions, the magazine wrote that “Nothing makes more difference to a child’s schooling than the quality of their teachers.” It cited an American study where it was found that children taught by the top 25% of staff make twice as much progress as those taught by the least effective quarter. Many developed countries, including the US have a teacher shortage, and in the case of the latter they come disproportionately from the least selective universities.
And what is the reason for this? Mostly, said the journal, it was uncompetitive salaries. Well clearly someone forgot to mention this to our government which in its usual blinkered fashion confuses educational issues with political ones. The connection between good teaching and good educational outcomes seems to have escaped them. Furthermore, they seem reluctant to make teaching a competitive profession salary-wise, so it attracts quality entrants who could make a real impact on their students. In particular it would be helpful to attract more men back into the profession to act as role models for difficult male students.
It should be acknowledged that the classroom has become a more challenging environment than it used to be, not just here but in other countries as well, with some parents far more likely than in the past to act aggressively towards teachers. Disciplinary matters are to some extent – although not altogether – culturally specific, and each nation has to address them as appropriate to its situation. Underpaid teachers, however, will not be tempted to invest extra sustained effort in teaching their students in a hostile context.
The assumption here has always been that smaller class sizes produce better results, but as a generalization it seems this is not true. Class sizes in rich countries, said the Economist, have shrunk over time, but this has not been accompanied by any improvement in test scores. An exception is Japan, which beats the US on international tests even although its classes normally have ten more children.
Then there is the matter of AI which it is blithely assumed will revolutionise education delivery. However this seems unlikely. At this stage it is still not “fit for purpose”; it can get sums wrong and it makes up facts, although in the course of time it has to be presumed that these problems will be ironed out. There are, however, more fundamental issues. The periodical refers to the problem of motivation, and to the fact that when you leave youngsters to study on their own, there are always some who don’t do much, and no kind of AI will fix that.
Quoting Dr Justin Reich of MIT the Economist says: “Talking to robots is boring. The reason students learn algebra is because they like the teacher …” There is also the “lazy assumption” that one-to-one instruction is more effective than learning as a group, but teachers and children do not agree. Many educators do see a big role for AI, however, as helping teachers improve their practice. To quote Dr Reich again: “It is more realistic to expect that technology will improve learning by helping schools to do better at what they have been doing for generations.” Perhaps someone should mention to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo that online learning is no substitute for teachers.
What appears to have prompted the feature is the fact that schools in most wealthy countries are making poor progress. Nations like Finland, which once led the PISA tables, have now flat-lined. Singapore which currently leads the pack, in contrast, continues to get improved results. And there is England, whose 15-year-olds were 29th in the world in Maths according to PISA in 2009, but who rose to 11th in 2022. So what are these nations doing right, which the others are not?
The answer seems to be that they have gone back to basics and have resuscitated more conventional “teacher-directed” instruction, as well as transmitting more content than those countries which have been pushing ‘problem-solving’ and ‘critical thinking’ without acquiring expertise in particular subjects. The “fashionable” idea is that children learn better if teachers are what was described as a “guide on the side, not a sage on the stage”, so that children are sent on more self-guided projects, rather than having something explained to them directly. Research and PISA scores now suggest that teacher-directed students do better than enquiry-based ones.
The magazine says that in the case of England the national curriculum was made thicker and more specific, and in reading the “child-centred” approach was abandoned in favour of “the drudgery” of phonics. “The more tedious methods,” wrote the Economist, “which depend greatly on such frowned-upon techniques as rote memorisation, get better results.” It also mentioned reform of the national school inspectorate, as well as the setting up of an autonomous agency which can supply if requested high-quality lesson plans for every class.
England offers a striking contrast to Scotland, which radically changed its curriculum to a more ‘progressive’ one in 2010, and whose scores have declined dramatically ever since. And this is despite the fact that its spending per student is 18% higher than it is in England.
No one outside our Education Ministry knows anything about our curricula, let alone what teaching methods are advocated both by that institution and the Teachers’ Training College. And the NGSA and CXC exams aside, is there any difference between the methods of the leading private schools and the public ones and what they teach? Have the mandarins in the Ministry considered questions about methods to be used in the nation’s schools? What is the thinking behind all these new textbooks which are being generated?
As evidence of all the advances it is making in education, the government points to the plethora of new schools it is building. But what are schools without qualified teachers? And what is being taught in these schools? Buildings do not make an education system. Perhaps it is time the Chief Education Officer, or the Minister, gave the nation a more detailed explication of what their education policy actually is.
