Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Let’s Do The Math (And English)

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2 comments:

ROLAND said...

Though I agree with the majority of the reasons given, I have noted that nothing was said about discipline. The Bocage Secondary School has been piloted as a child friendly school, whatever that means. Could this have contributed to their performance?

In addition to the discipline factor, I strongly believe the prevalence of use of the social networking has a great part to play. Also we need to ask ourselves , Who is responsible for learning.

Finally, we need to look at our foundational level - the primary schools. Look at the curriculum, personnel, availability of equipment and of course teacher related issues. And what roles do parents play?

August 28, 2012 at 4:47 PM
Anonymous said...

A lot more work has to be done at the primary school level with the students and the teachers. Students need to master the basics before they can move on to more complex tasks. The primary school teachers seem to be preoccupied with getting their best students to the best secondary schools (probably)at the expense of the students with learning difficulties. The Common Entrance Exam still determines so much of a child's educational experience.

I agree with the above blogger that lack of discipline at the schools can also contribute to the low scores. Feelings of insecurity and distractions caused by disruptive students can negatively impact teaching and learning. Unfortunately, most of the schools experiencing the majority of the discipline problems are schools with the lowest performing students (based on Common Entrance Exam).

The scores will contiune to decline at least for the next few years as students who are in secondary schools solely as a result of Universal Secondary Education write the CSEC. They could not pass the CEE, very little intervention is done to move them forward, yet they are required to write the CSEC. I believe the primary school sector needs to be strengthened to identify and provide intervention for students who need help. At the secondary level, students need to be provided with serious remedial work before/after school,during school breaks and maybe even on Saturdays for some students.

Apparently, the Ministry has met to discuss the results. Hopefully, they will have some strategies to remedy this because this is terrible.

August 28, 2012 at 8:59 PM

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