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Ministry mulls implementing streaming in schools
Some experts believe the time has come for Guyana as a nation to seriously consider streaming as a means of effectively addressing particular educational needs of the country’s children and consequently raise overall standards in the education system.
Streaming is the grouping of children by age and ability for the purpose of effective teaching and learning.
It is important to note that although some educational theorists had decided against streaming from the 70s and onwards, over the last ten years it has been making a serious comeback. This comeback in many countries has been as a result of government guidance around the world and generally because it is seen as
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand and some primary school children.
a means of raising standards.
More and more it is being recognised that it is extremely difficult to differentiate materials and teaching among students of varying abilities in the same classroom and that such a situation has the propensity to significantly affect all students involved.
There are many arguments against streaming. Some of these in the main include the lowering of self-esteem, social alienation and educational inequality of lower stream students. Some are of the view that inequality and alienation in this context really exist in a setting where slow learners can be lost by not adequately being catered for in the classroom hence they are left behind.
Streaming is so designed to mitigate the effects of such a situation by giving the class teacher ample time to give students individualized attention and supervision. Streaming allows teachers to better direct lessons toward the specific ability level of students in each class. Generally, students are able to work at a pace commensurate with ability thus creating an avenue for them to learn more and interact with materials and their teachers.
For streaming to take full effect it must be strategically planned for by school administrators. Pivotal to this is the fact that researchers James and Chen-Lin Kulik found that students achieve significantly more when grouped by ability compared with those who were not, but only when they were provided with programmes that were designed specifically to meet their needs.
Cognizance must be taken of the fact that lower ability students can be easily demotivated in an unstreamed setting where their inabilities stand out in stark contrast with more gifted or even average students. This situation may lower their self-esteem, cause them to be withdrawn, become rebellious and even truants.
Streaming also produces substantial gains for gifted students; since it allows for gifted students to be with their intellectual peers in order to be appropriately challenged and to view their own abilities more realistically. They will not have their egos inflated by outperforming students with lower ability but rather will be pushed to their limit, thus realizing their true potential.
A streamed class is like a moving train. The conductor is the teacher, the passengers are the students and they are going somewhere together. The unstreamed class is like a group out on a hike. The more fit among the group quickly take the lead only to discover that they must either stop to wait on their lagging companions or go back to meet them. Eventually they may lose enthusiasm for the hike. Likewise, the less able hikers may become frustrated as a result of their inability to keep up with the group and opt out together. Undoubtedly, both groups are at a disadvantage in this type of class setting. What is needed in this process is the creation of a caring supportive school ethos that engenders the success of every child regardless of the academic grouping structure.
In Guyana, while students are generally grouped and promoted to the next level of learning based on their academic abilities, this process is not crafted based on the principle of streaming. The Ministry of Education is however examining the impact of this approach and will consider the adaptation of streaming in Guyana as a policy in the education system.
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