Head teachers critical to secondary school improvement – Education official

Nov 03, 2010 News

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“Head teachers must play a critical role in ensuring that the educational objective within the public education system is achieved. In no way would I like you to underestimate the impact that you can possibly have on changing the status quo…”
This was the notion expressed by Technical Officer within the Education Ministry, Olato Sam, during a one-day workshop held for head teachers at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD).
The session, according to Sam, was streamlined by Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, in recognition of the fact that in order for improvement to be realised in the school system head teachers must “buy into every level and be fully aware of the wide range of interventions that are being actually worked out and implemented at the level of Central Ministry.”
He underscored that it is essential that the heads of schools take on the responsibility of ensuring that the various proposed measures are properly implemented. He further asserted that “if we fail in that regard all of our efforts will be wasted. It is you (teachers) that have to play the critical role of bridging the gap between our students, parents and communities and the broader objectives that will emerge from the policy planning departments of the Ministry.”
He pointed out that there are several top officials within the Ministry who continually dedicate considerable time strategising in an attempt to produce suitable ideas on how to improve the system.  And in the process of strategising, the question is often raised as to whether methods introduced into the system are taking the desired anticipated effect.
“We have trained, we have done workshop after workshop, and we have done a number of things, but we are not sure that these things are filtering down to the classrooms and that our students are ultimately benefiting from all of the work that we have done….It is time this stops, and it will only stop when our head teachers begin to take responsibility for the implementation of the ideas that are emerging,” Sam
added.
He lamented the fact that many head teachers operate as though they are not a part of the education system, reacting in a way which suggests that it is a separate entity. He asserted that the teachers are in fact the image of the system and therefore must seek to internalise this notion and embrace the efforts of the Ministry.
With a view of improving performance in secondary schools, the Ministry of Education has been continually engaging a number of innovative strategies.  In this regard, Minister Baksh recently met with school heads with a view of formulating additional measures to help boost the performance in various subject areas, particularly the core areas of Mathematics and English.
The move, the Minister disclosed, started out with discussions at the Central Ministry level which saw the low performance in Mathematics being scrutinised. And it was discovered even then that the situation was one of serious concern, thus the need for an urgent intervention.
“What can we do? What changes or strategic programmes can we advance to correct the situation and see a significant improvement in Mathematics? “Not in five or three years or even two years from now but next year!”
According to the Minister, the Ministry already has a target outlined and therefore requires the support of head teachers if the desired result is to be realised.
“We want to see a significant improvement in Mathematics. As you know in the last Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination we had a 34 percent pass rate. We are not satisfied with that and we want to move that up significantly come next CSEC.”
At the same time, Baksh said that it is expected that the satisfactory performance in English ‘A’ remains constant even as he commended the effort that was displayed by all secondary schools. He attributed the improvement in English ‘A’ to good organising and quality teaching which saw the pass rate moving from 50 percent last year to 59 percent this year. “Indeed it was an exemplary performance and we want to sustain that and we want to improve in all of the subject areas…”
It was against this background, he said, that a meeting was planned to look broadly at what is being done for secondary education in Guyana in order for a more holistic approach to be engaged.
The Minister maintained that secondary schools’ performances have been improving, particularly over the last three years, despite some criticisms that were highlighted in the media.
“You can see it from the statistics, not only our performance at the CSEC, by receiving the top student award and the best performing students in Caricom for Business and Science but the data shows that we have been improving.”
Baksh admitted that there are existing challenges thus the need for collaboration with head teachers.

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