Friday, August 23, 2013

The problem with maths in Saint Lucia

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all, all our past and present prime minister even and yet even worse, the ministers of education do not know what our education system is supposed to achieve. "If you don't know where you are going, then any road will do."

If all of these people have no fundamental idea regarding what the objective is, aren't they not simply just going perfunctorily through the motions? After all, isn't a huge and very generous pension, rewarded equally for both good and bad job performances alike?

"Wise men think alike. Fools seldom differ."

August 24, 2013 at 11:57 AM
Anonymous said...

There is no complex answer to our little problem with Mathematics. One of our longstanding Ministers of Education for some 30 plus years was a country bookie, who knew not much more about development education, other than to boast ad nauseam, that he had built 'fairty' schools.

That is John Compton's treasured legacy from his supposed imitation of the Taiwanese model of development. What? You wanted more? Are you kidding? What more did you expect from someone with fishing village development outlook from an islet off St. Vincent?

Some children undoubtedly and happily would grow up, survive and progress way beyond that came crap coming out of the Teachers' Training College. After all, all you had to do there to pass the Mathematics requirement was to show that you, the trained teacher, had the capability to teach one single class, how to solve Simultaneous Equations. Voila! Having done that, you were good to go. You had passed all the mathematical requirements for your teacher's certification.

So well armed, it is little wonder that teachers taught large cross-sections of generations of schoolchildren with not much more, and with parents remaining incapable of helping their schoolchildren with their mathematics homework.

Historically then, Teacher's Training College, until the second half of the 1970s was an institution largely responsible for a great deal of Saint Lucia's underdevelopment. What a disservice that was!

August 25, 2013 at 1:58 PM
Anonymous said...

The Infant and Primary schools are our base however, they are largely ignored. The best teachers are encouraged to teach at the secondary schools instead of the primary schools. The primary school teachers are only concerned with the students who can perform well at the Common Entrance Exam. The others are left to fend for themselves. The teaching methods at many of the primary schools are still the traditional talk and chalk. No creativity.
The poor math results are nothing new but there is no national movement to solve the issue. We keep doing the same things and expecting different results. These people don't care about education, they just talk. All talk and no action!

August 26, 2013 at 12:26 PM
Anonymous said...

Kenny should have demanded of each cabinet minister, what initiatives should be taken that would make him or her a relevant and meaningful partner, in order to transform, what up to now is the empty rhetoric about his concern for jobs and reducing unemployment. That is not on the cards. He has no such skill.

Therefore, it is business as usual. Ministries and ministers are by and large, just going through the motions with mythical and childlike expectations that changes are going to come about without effort.

Take for instance education. What on earth, even as a past teacher, has the PM ever given any kind of guidance, or taken any well-considered initiative that helps to create new meaningful and sustainable jobs? Now you are not going to mention his farcical STEP. Are you?

August 26, 2013 at 3:48 PM
Anonymous said...

If Compton had used the banana revenues better, and was NOT so clueless about education and development, we would have long had a top-notch technical education facility, as a legacy. Instead, that fishing village extract from off an islet in Saint Vincent, left us a legacy of highhandedness, country bookie backwardness, political violence with victimization, real narco-goons and ex-con characters and other social misfits for members of parliament. It worked for him. Others have vowed to and are following in his footsteps. Wise people in Soufriere might just save us from more dastard political mischief.

August 27, 2013 at 6:05 AM
Anonymous said...

This no child left behind crap is just thoughtless imitation. What should be the objective of our education for the young should be our major focus. What kind of human capital are we trying to develop, makes much more sense than parroting mindlessly what is evidently failing where it all started, the USA.

Japan was the number one economy for a brief period. During that that it copied all the technologies available to it from the US. It never invested in its own R&D save robotics in support of no dilution of the Japanese with the mixture or races. The robots are replacing retired workers in the workforce.

Copying is not a sustainable policy. We had sooner than later develop our own creative and innovative solutions to our own problems. But where are we going to start? Saint Lucia they say, is idiot country.

August 27, 2013 at 8:39 AM

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