Ed. Ministry to introduce strategic prog. to better Maths performance – CEO

Aug 19, 2014 News

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While insisting that performance in Mathematics has been consistently improving, the Ministry of Education is cognizant of the fact that a 38.7 per cent pass rate at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination leaves much to be desired.
And so in the quest to better this performance, the Ministry is poised to introduce a strategic programme in a matter of months.
This is according to Chief Education Officer (CEO), Olato Sam, who revealed

during a recent press conference at the National Centre for Education Resource Development, that efforts will be directed towards “specifically targeting secondary Mathematics in a major way.”
The recent CSEC results revealed that Guyana had realised a nine per cent improvement in its performance at Mathematics when compared to the 28.92 Grade One to Three passes last year.
In order to improve the performance in this regard, Sam said that the Ministry will be seeking to embrace an approach that will see it providing an immense amount of support to teachers in terms of professional development. Added to this, support will be provided to students, the CEO said, in the form of appropriate technology.
Moreover, he pointed out that the Ministry will be looking to have new approaches adopted in the school system to improve the delivery of Mathematics in the teaching and learning process. “A very comprehensive project has been devised to really monitor how well our students are doing from entrance to secondary school right through to CSEC…and through this, we are hoping to significantly improve Mathematics performances across the board,” said the CEO.
And Sam is optimistic that the strategic moves by the Ministry will garner needed support from the various stakeholders.
Meanwhile, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, in offering a progress report on a pilot project she implemented in 41 secondary schools at the start of her tenure to improve the performance of Mathematics and English, revealed that, that move too was a strategic one.
According to her, the two target subject areas are in fact the ones that Guyana, like the rest of the Region, has been recording very poor performances in.  “It was (becoming) frustrating, and we thought that we could do more, so we implemented the pilot project to give all the students in those pilot schools additional materials – textbooks, geometry sets and calculators, and we trained and re-trained, trained and re-trained (our) teachers…” said Manickchand of the pilot venture.
She disclosed too, that students’ competency levels were frequently checked through assessments and by other means.
The Minister is therefore convinced that the project was instrumental in improved performances recorded at CSEC this year. “I have to tell you the pilot schools have recorded remarkable improvement,” informed the Education Minister with pride.
Among the schools that were included in the project were: Abram Zuil, Anna Regina and Aurora (Region Two); West Demerara, Zeeburg, Patentia, Leonora, Stewartville (Region Three); Annandale, Covent Garden, Bladen Hall, Hope (Region Four); East Ruimveldt, Christ Church, North Georgetown, Central, Brickdam, North Ruimveldt, Richard Ishmael (Georgetown); Bushlot, Mahaicony, Bygeval, Woodley Park Primary Tops (Region Five); J. C. Chandisingh, Tagore Memorial, , New Amsterdam Multilateral, Berbice High, Skeldon Line Path  (Region Six); Three Miles (Region Seven), St. Ignatius (Region Nine), MacKenzie High, Christianburg and Silver City (Region 10).
In detailing some of the improved pass rates, the Minister related how Zeeburg, one of the most improved schools at both Mathematics and English, had a 42 per cent pass rate at English and a 30 per cent pass rate at Mathematics last year, rates that moved to 78 and 65 per cent respectively  this year.
Another astounding improvement detailed by the Minister was that recorded by the East Ruimveldt Secondary School, which, according to her, saw four per cent of its students passing Mathematics with Grades One to three last year but 41 per cent passing this year.
“These kinds of remarkable improvements didn’t happen by magic…I remember critics saying, when we started this programme, that you can’t change these results overnight, you have to do this, you have to do that.”
“We have shown that with consistent efforts, with perseverance, with a focus on the things that are important (such as) training our teachers, monitoring what they do and frequent assessments, we can change the lives of children,” asserted the Minister.

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