Why the Ministry of Education Must Engage Mathematics Specialists Wherever They are Found

Aug 16, 2026 Features / Columnists, News

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– Guyana cannot solve its mathematics problem by treating mathematics as a subject to be passed. It must cultivate mathematics as a way of thinking.

By Dr. Karen Abrams, MBA, AA

(Kaieteur News) – Guyana’s mathematics challenge is not simply that too many children fail examinations. It is that too many students are taught to experience mathematics as a catalogue of rules, formulas and familiar question types, rather than as a language for reasoning through an unfamiliar problem. They learn the procedures; they practice the past papers; they identify the type of question; and, in the best cases, they execute the expected steps. Those things matter. Memorisation has a place. Fluency matters. Practice matters. But none of them, by themselves, produces the kind of mathematical thinker Guyana now needs.

The Ministry of Education should therefore make a deliberate national policy of engaging mathematics specialists wherever they are found; in the Guyanese diaspora, at universities, in research laboratories, in engineering and data-driven industries, and in programmes that have already shown they can expose students to serious mathematics. These specialists should not replace classroom teachers. They should strengthen the system by working alongside them: designing rich tasks, coaching teachers, mentoring students, building assessment tools that measure reasoning, and creating opportunities for learners to tackle problems for which there is no memorised recipe.

The Blackman-Waddell Summer Math Institute illustrates the type of resource Guyana should be expanding, not treating as an afterthought. A recent account reported that the new summer programme was formerly operated for a decade under the Queen’s College alumni banner before being re-established as an independent institute led by Dr. Terrence Richard Blackman and Dr. Cleveland Waddell, in partnership with STEMGuyana. Its stated content is revealing: advanced problem-solving, proof, geometry, statistics, computational thinking, coding, number theory, cryptography and mathematical modelling. Its students are expected to question assumptions, explain their reasoning, collaborate and persist through unfamiliar problems. In this context, I would be remiss if I did not mention the QC Board’s decision to deny the Math Camp use of the Queen’s College laboratory just two weeks before its scheduled start, followed by the intervention of a Ministry of Education official that prevented the camp from using alternative taxpayer funded facilities. These decisions demonstrate either a troubling failure to understand, or a complete disregard for, the enormity of the mathematics crisis confronting our nation’s children.

The Math Institute is not a luxury for a tiny gifted elite. It is a demonstration of a different conception of mathematics. The point is not merely to introduce a new theorem or a harder formula. It is to build the mental habits that allow a student to ask: What information matters? What can I assume? Which representation will help? Is there another route? Does my answer make sense? Those questions are the bridge between doing mathematics in an exercise book and using mathematics in engineering, data analysis, robotics, finance, environmental management or industrial operations.

At STEMGuyana, I have seen the gap directly. Some students who have earned an A in CSEC Mathematics still struggle when they must apply concepts, they know well to make a robot turn accurately, interpret sensor readings, calculate a gear ratio, determine an optimal route, diagnose an error or defend a design choice. This is not evidence that these students lack intelligence or that their examination success is meaningless. It is evidence that procedural mastery and transferable problem-solving are not the same thing. A student can know the formula for speed, distance and time, for example, yet hesitate when a robotics task requires deciding which distance matters, accounting for uncertainty in a sensor reading or revising a plan after the machine behaves unexpectedly. With enough practice, these same students become fluent and, more importantly, globally competitive, with the potential to contribute meaningfully to the growth and development of Guyana’s industries. This is an important reason why the Team Guyana Robotics programme should be nationally sponsored and supported.

Caribbean research makes the point with uncomfortable clarity. In a 2022 study of 31 Jamaican mathematics coaches, UWI researchers Avalloy McCarthy-Curvin, Lois George and Camella Buddo found that, while the teachers surveyed felt confident, they did not appear to have the knowledge and skills required to teach mathematics effectively through a problem-solving approach. The authors distinguish routine exercises, where students recognise a familiar method, from non-routine problems, where the solver must generate a productive approach using reasoning and critical analysis. That is not a criticism of Guyanese teachers, and the Jamaican study cannot be used as a measurement of Guyana’s classrooms. It is, however, a Caribbean warning; a curriculum may say “problem solving,” but problem-solving pedagogy requires specialist preparation, sustained practice and support.

Guyana’s assessment results show why that distinction matters. At the CSEC level, the Government reported that the 2025 Mathematics pass rate was 32%, five percentage points above the 2024 rate of 27%, after a Mathematics Intervention Programme that allegedly included past-paper booklets, calculators, targeted teacher support and Math Monitors. That improvement should be acknowledged. But it also means that, among the reported CSEC candidates, roughly two-thirds did not earn a passing Mathematics grade. A country cannot be satisfied with that outcome at the very moment it says it intends to compete in technology, engineering, energy and advanced services.

At the NGSA level, the Ministry’s published Grade 6 trend series reported a rise in the mathematics pass rate from about 40% in 2024 to 55% in 2025. Yet the public must be careful about what this figure proves. NGSA reporting uses annually standardised T-scores, while the Ministry defines a pass by a raw-mark threshold. Without publication of the raw-score distributions, technical parameters and a formal process that equates the 2024 and 2025 papers to the same scale, the 15-point headline cannot tell us precisely how much underlying mathematics learning improved. It shows that more children met the reported 50% threshold in 2025; however, it does not establish that the country created 15 percentage points more A- or B-level mathematical thinkers.

The geographic pattern is also instructive. The MOE’s complete 2025 NGSA report showed the strongest mathematics school performance concentrated in private schools in Regions 3 and 4. That concentration does not prove that children elsewhere lack ability. It points instead to unequal access to the preparation infrastructure like specialist teaching, enrichment, peer competition, resources and sustained adult attention, that allows ability to become high-level performance.

The Ministry’s existing initiatives are a start, not a complete answer. Its stated plan includes more teacher training, literacy and numeracy assessments, expanded Math Monitors, the Guyana Digital School (which is yet to be proven effective) and “Maths Tents” that bring students together for focused instruction. These interventions should be measured for individual impact. But a national strategy that stops at reinforcement, past papers and familiar curriculum weaknesses will reproduce the problem it seeks to solve; students who become better at recognising question types without becoming more confident at framing and solving new ones.

Guyana needs a National Mathematics Specialist Partnership. It should bring Blackman, Waddell and other Guyanese specialists into a structured collaboration with classroom teachers, CPCE, the University of Guyana, STEMGuyana, professional associations and industry. The partnership should develop non-routine problems rooted in Guyanese life; flood forecasting, drainage, transport, energy use, crop yields, budgeting, coding and robotics. It should establish regional mathematics labs and holiday institutes, including in hinterland communities; support teachers with demonstration lessons and lesson-study cycles; and create assessment tasks that reward explanation, modelling, multiple strategies and error analysis, not only final answers.

Most importantly, it should identify promising students early without limiting the work to those already labelled “gifted.” Every child does not need to become a theoretical mathematician. But every child deserves to experience mathematics as more than fear, speed and a page of repeated exercises. Every child should encounter the satisfaction of staying with a difficult problem, testing an idea, failing intelligently, revising and finally seeing a pattern emerge.

An oil-producing economy cannot outsource its intellectual future. The International Labour Organisation’s Guyana oil-and-gas skills study was commissioned precisely to map occupational profiles, competencies, training options and perceived availability of skills in a rapidly changing sector. Not every job in oil and gas requires advanced mathematics. But the economy that surrounds oil; engineering, data, logistics, environmental monitoring, risk management, finance, automation, cybersecurity and technology entrepreneurship, will reward citizens who can reason quantitatively, model systems and solve problems no past paper has already solved for them.

The choice before the Ministry is not between respecting teachers and engaging specialists. It is between leaving exceptional expertise at the margins or mobilising it for the public good. Guyana has mathematicians in its diaspora, in its universities, in its industries and in programmes such as the Blackman-Waddell Institute. The Ministry should find them, invite them in, support their work and require that their expertise reaches teachers and learners far beyond Georgetown.

Guyana does not need more students who can only recognise the question. It needs more young people who can define the problem, choose a strategy, test a model, explain a result and build a solution. That is the mathematics muscle an ambitious country must now develop.

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• examinations, mathematics, Ministry of Education, NGSA

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