Budget and Education

Mar 25, 2013 Editorial

The Budget will be presented today and we are sure that there will be a substantial chunk of it dedicated to education. As we have pointed out in this space before, this government has consistently budgeted significantly for education during the last two decades. Last year the sector received 6.7% – almost $13 billion. But as we note that today some 17,000 children will be writing the National Grade Six Assessment, we have to enquire as to how effective has been that spending.
In a couple of months we will be swamped by news reports of the top one percent high flyers entering the premier secondary schools in Georgetown. We have to ask: what of the plan to bring all high schools up to equivalent standards so that children could be sent to high schools in their districts? Even though at the last CSEC, there were high flyers from outlining rural schools, they are the exception rather than the rule as indicators of increasing equality of secondary schools. We may therefore boast about all graduating Six Graders ending up in high schools but the $64,000 question is, “What kind of high school?”
The answer lies in the absolutely atrocious results obtained in Mathematics and English at the last CSEC exams. Even the Minister of Education had to throw up her hands in despair when the vaunted ‘pilot project’ in English A and Maths resulted in passes in the latter, crucial subject, dropping from 30.4% to 29.69%. Less than one in three students that sat for Mathematics could not obtain even a Grade 3. We can project from these statistics as to what will obtain at the University level, so that it comes as no surprise to learn about the inability of University graduates to compute or string a coherent sentence together.
The basic problem is not that the policy-makers are not aware of the very obvious shortcomings on the system but there is invariably no follow through in the implementation in projects. Last week, after another study was unveiled for ‘reinvigorating’ UG, the Pro-Chancellor could not help wondering if it would join, on the shelves, the several (named) studies that were proposed since 1990. We see the same phenomena unfolding from the lowest level of the system.
Take the “Assessments” at the Grades 2, 4 and 6 that replaced the one-shot “Common Entrance’ in 2006. The rationale offered was that the ‘assessments’ (rather than ‘tests’) would offer teachers at the Primary level a diagnostic reading of the students’ strengths and weaknesses, This, in turn, would allow the appropriate interventions to be made to enable the students to best fulfill their potential. Ever since the Assessments were introduced, however, we have dared, without any response, the Ministry to inform the public about which teacher, much less school, has used the Assessments to work with any individual student.
Another innovation that was introduced to address a failure of the education system was the introduction of three new vocational schools. The complaint was that the total focus of academic achievement that we inherited from the British was inappropriate to both the normal spectrum of students with various aptitudes and to our own developmental needs. However, the results from the first batch to graduate have been quite disheartening, compared to the billions that were invested in the overall programme.
Of the 253 persons who started out, only 140 graduated, producing a 45% drop-out rate. With the subjects offered including Agri-Mechanic, Carpentry, Data Operations, Electrical Installation, General Office Administration (Office Clerk), Metal Work Engineering, Motor Vehicle Repairs (Cars and Light trucks), and welding one would have assumed that the courses would have been oversubscribed. We have heard complaints about Guyanese not being hired on some foreign-sourced projects but our training programmes will have to do better if we hope to compete with global heavyweights like China.
The point we wish to reiterate is that in education, the size of the budget is not all that matters: it is how effectively we implement our programmes.

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