Revamping the education system

Dec 17, 2011 Editorial

All through last year and even before we kept hearing about the improvements in education, the former Minister kept unveiling plans to ensure improved performances from children whose academic level appeared to be on the decline. But for some reason, these new areas of focus did not seem to be in the correct place.
The experts kept insisting that some of the best teachers should be in the lower schools where children needed a foundation. The early years are the ones that determine whether a child would be able to realize his or her full potential. It is therefore imperative that teachers who understand teaching should welcome the young children to school.
Those who boast of doing so well will most certainly attribute their achievements to the teachers who took them under the wing from the time they entered school. But despite this knowledge we kept seeing the most inexperienced people being posted to the lower schools. It is as though the job of teachers at this level is to keep children quiet or to prevent them from being restless.
And this has been going on for much too long with the result that many children, even at the end of their primary school life cannot read or write. The number of illiterates in the society is growing with each passing year.
We now have a new Minister of Education and within a fortnight of assuming office she has undertaken to drastically improve performances in Mathematics and English. She is starting at the top and she boldly predicts that at the external examinations the pass grades in Mathematics and English would see radical improvement within five months.
This is interesting. There is the suggestion that the students about to write the examinations have a proper foundation in these subject areas. Perhaps, there is going to be intensified teaching with the teachers taking those students back a few levels to bridge the gap between semi literacy and full-fledged literacy. Perhaps it is going to be the same with Mathematics.
We have known of cases where students on their own spend a few weeks going over the entire syllabus, starting from scratch and within weeks were good enough to even excel. But such students had the grounding and the ability to think rather than learn by rote as seems to be the case these days.
The fact that the Minister is concentrating at the top of the ladder must suggest that there is some worry that those who are leaving school are the people who could create the most problems in the society if their energies are not properly channeled. Already we find that the young school leavers are the people most likely to be recruited by the drug lords and by the other gangs.
It would be interesting to see the Minister revamp the entire education system starting with what happens at the nursery and early primary levels. She does not have much to work with but she has a President who is amenable to recommendations that would see the development of the country. President Bharrat Jagdeo was asked by numerous groups to extend the age of retirement. He never did.
President Donald Ramotar would do well to revisit this issue especially since Guyana seems to be recording a declining population and a declining skills pool. If he needs any prodding all he has to do is to look at the national Voters’ List. It is smaller than it was in 1992 and even in 2006.
It is also clear that the successes in the education system are increasingly being credited to private practitioners who make a fortune by offering private lessons. Indeed, the schools are recognized for entering the student but if the parents are to have a say they would tell about the money they spend to have children attend private lessons for as long as four and five hours per day.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand may have started out at the top but she needs to also pay special attention to the cradle of the system. There is no reason why she cannot take the education almost back to the glory days. She has five years, unless there is a snap election and she is moved.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News