Education in trouble

Dec 03, 2008 Features / Columnists

Peter R. Ramsaroop, MBA

INTRODUCTION
This week I had the opportunity to watch a teacher grading Christmas Term exams of another class in her school. I was appalled at what I saw. The grading was on a dictation test. Out of 35 students, 10 could not even write one word correctly. For example the word WHICH was written as YTSKVT. Out of 50 words none was correct. Others could not spell correctly. These were all children in Grade 4, ages 8-9.
For a qualified teacher to get to the end of the term and have 10 of their 35 students not knowing to spell CAT correctly is a failure of the teacher and the education system. That teacher would have known by mid-term that these students cannot read or write and the responsibility is his/hers to do something about it. Without any measurements of our teachers, these young children will not have a future. We have great teachers in our system, but we have an education system that is in trouble. They are many reasons for such a failure, from economics in the home to lack of adequate tools for teachers to utilize.

AFTER SCHOOL LESSONS
Over the last decade, as our education system deteriorated to its worst in the history of our nation, parallel education systems have been created. More private schools are being established and after school lessons are on the increase. When many of our students finally do well, it is not a result of the formal education system but credited mainly to extra lessons.
Many teachers in the public school system are forced to spend their own money on teacher aids. Given the measly salaries they receive, one wonders how many of them can do this, and is it impacting on the education of our children.
A NEW FOCUS A MUST:
There must be many critical changes in our education system today, not in the future, in order for us to ensure compliance with the mandate to educate our children

1. We have failed to provide high quality teachers in our classroom and we have failed to adequately support and pay them right.
2. Teachers are leaving Guyana at a very high rate. The Cyril Potter College of Education cannot put out enough teachers that are required by the system. Schools are now hiring secondary school graduates and paying them almost the same as someone going to the Teacher’s college for three years. Many are leaving the profession in search of higher pay also.
3. Vision Guyana started a program in 2007 where we pay for lessons for anyone that failed Math and Science at CXCs. We believe that we must make Math and Science Education a national priority. We also ought to go on a campaign to encourage those that do well in those areas to go into the teaching profession, but we must also increase pay for them.
4. Everyday we are finding that our dropout rate in schools is on the increase as students fail to cope and parents stop sending their children to school. This can be because they just don’t care, for economic reasons or because they cannot afford transportation and food cost. We have to look at curbing this alarming issue.
5. We must work on programs to retain, recruit and pay our teachers better. We must also create a performance measurement tool with incentives, so those 10 students that cannot read and write would be how we measure the teacher, not just the system.
6. We have to create a teacher’s mentorship program for young teachers.

CONCLUSION
These are some practical suggestions that we believe we need to inject into our education system. All of us as parents should be concerned that we have a broken system that must be fixed as soon as possible. In addition, we have advocated for free public transportation for our children and an economic plan that must be introduced that brings relief to parents.
We have also proposed additional help for single parents in order to get both child and parent educated. In addition, an early childhood education plan that places key emphasis on early care and education for young children will be critical for when they enter the public school system.
I challenge all of our parents to take an interest in their children’s education; you must spend time with them in the evenings with their homework. If they do not have any, then you should be concerned that their teacher may not be doing their job.
Let us lobby for better pay for our teachers, but also require them to be measured, to ensure our children are learning. Our children are not just our future, but they are our Today. We love them.
Until next time “Roop”.

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