Parents, students come out in support of ‘no automatic promotion’ stance

Nov 24, 2010 News

“No Thomo, no School!” was the chant by students of the Wismar/Christianburg Secondary School (WCSS), who along with their parents, marched down Burnham Drive on Wismar, then crossed the river to Mackenzie where they continued their protest.

Students marching down Blue Berry Hill from the Wismar/Christianburg Secondary School

The almost 500 students and parents who took to the streets on Monday were protesting a decision by the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) to summon Principal of the school, Cleveland Thomas, to a disciplinary hearing subsequent to his adamant stance not to promote 30 children, as was required through the system of automatic promotion.
Parents and students were prohibited by Police from marching across the Mackenzie/Wismar Bridge. However that did not stop them from getting to the other side.
Once on the Mackenzie shore they converged outside the District Education Office, where they upped the chanting, and demanded that no disciplinary action be taken against the Headmaster.
Later members of the school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA), who had gone with the Principal to Georgetown, returned and joined their counterparts in Linden.
A PTA meeting was subsequently called to discuss the issue.
The system of ‘no child left behind’ has been implemented by schools across Guyana, after it was mandated by the Ministry of Education.
However the Principal of WCSS is having none of that at his school. He pointed out that he was waiting on a letter from the Teaching Service Commission, as regards the sanctions to be brought against him, but emphasized that he had already indicated to them that he was not prepared to promote children who cannot read and write.

WCSS Principal, Cleveland Thomas

‘What we did at the school was to promote the children from the remedial class, those who came to the summer school, and some of them indeed showed great improvement. There are some others who failed because of their own negligence, so we allowed them to also go over to the next class because when we checked their work, they were solid enough to go over to the next class.
“But the students who we held back are those that cannot read and write. I am speaking of children who are now learning to write their names, now learning how to form letters and so on.”
The Principal pointed out that this sad state of affairs came about as a result of the very automatic promotion system, which is practised at both the primary and nursery levels.
“So when the children get into secondary school they are still performing at the primary level, some even at the nursery level,” Thomas noted.
He added that while a lot of the blame goes to this system of automatic promotion in the lower schools, a lot also has to be cast squarely on the shoulders of some parents, who do not take the time to teach their children at home, especially as it relates to developing their reading and writing skills.
Thomas said that a lot of people would also blame the prevalence of single-parent households for the poor performance of students, but he reflected that there were always single-parents, but they were able and willing to assist their children at home.
Of interest, too, was the fact that most students at WCSS do not write the CXC exams at age 15, but from 17 onwards. Thomas said that this was due to the poor level of some students that they receive from the ‘feeder’ schools.
“What I know we have in Linden, which is very sad, is the party parade system, where our people are more interested in looking fancy, and going to the different social things, the dances and the fêtes, and various sessions, where they would spend a lot of money, but to spend one hour of quality time with their children, reading to them and teaching them is something hard for them to do.”
Each child should at least be able to read and write and perform basic life skills, the Principal said, while maintaining his position of not promoting students who are not capable of performing these basic tasks.