Education Minister engages head teachers on ways to improve schools’ performances

Nov 20, 2009 News

By Sharmain Cornette
The need for a comparative look at Guyana’s performance in the education sector against that of Caricom is crucial even as improvement efforts are being engaged locally. This disclosure was made by Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, when he addressed a gathering of head teachers and principals of institutions in the Georgetown District yesterday.
The event was the Department of Education Georgetown Head teachers’ statutory meeting which was held at the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School.
And in the quest to establish a comparison, Baksh said that he has even sought to contact the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), his colleague ministers in Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica to garner some data.
“I think that we must have a comparative approach of how we are doing in relation to the other Caricom countries and therefore that can put us in context,” the Minister disclosed.
He underscored though that it is a known fact that Guyana has been doing reasonably well, a development he attributed to the hard work put in by teachers across the country, particularly in the Georgetown District which is leading all the other regions.
“We have been topping Caricom for the best performing student at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) for four years and in other areas too. We have topped in Science and Business Education this year, but these are pluses which seem not to be appreciated countrywide.”
Baksh said that based on the data he has been able to acquire the percentage of students who entered and wrote the most recent CSEC examination and obtained five or more subjects at one sitting, Guyana is in the lead and remains at the top.
Jamaica, for example, has had 24 percent of its candidate entries attain five or more subjects while Guyana is leading with 34 percent. However, Baksh noted that the areas of concern for Guyana at the secondary level, are those of Mathematics and English.
“We have to work harder and I think we can do it to put us at the top of the scale.”
In English ‘A’, the Minister said that grades one to three Guyana has scored 50.29 percent, Trinidad and Tobago 56.27 percent and Jamaica 53.88 percent.
And though Guyana is on par with those two countries, Baksh noted that Barbados is way ahead with 72.17 percent. “They are doing something special…perhaps which we can learn from,” the Minister speculated.
In the area of Mathematics from grades one to three Guyana has 31.46 percent, Jamaica has 36.12 percent while Trinidad and Barbados are ahead with 46.7 percent and 48.48 percent respectively.
Moreover, the Minister said that it is clear that a lot more work must be done in mathematics, adding that while there are interventions there is a need for even more to ensure improvement in the next few years. “We have to place more emphasis that is why I am appealing to you principals and head teachers to pay more attention to English and Mathematics.”
In the other subject areas, Baksh noted that the local performance is minimally below thus are not of major concern as he believes improvement is inevitable. And given that fact that the secondary performance has its basis at the primary level, Baksh noted that the Ministry has already taken action to closely monitor the grade Two and Four levels.
This he said is to analyse and determine what changes are required to improve the performance at schools that are not doing very well.
“We have to see how we can change the approaches and get better results…But it starts with you the principals. We can make it happen by analysing the results and ensure that some remediation is done to bring up the level of the low achievers…”
According to the Minister, the head teachers and principals in attendance yesterday represent a special pool of experienced and qualified teachers in Guyana and in the largest Education district. As such he noted that it is crucial that they play an integral role in helping to guide the way forward for the education sector.
“The way forward for the education ministry is through participation. We want to hear from the practitioners in the field to move forward with changes to improve the overall education system,” Baksh asserted.

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Education Minister engages head teachers on ways to improve schools’ performances

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