Georgetown: The Ministry of Education acknowledged from the very onset of the announcement of the 2013 CSEC results that it was dissatisfied with students’ performance in Mathematics and English. When questioned by the media about students’ performance in Mathematics, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand said, “This is nowhere near acceptable.”
She noted that this is one of the subject areas that the world and the region is struggling with, and the ministry would have to find ways of making sure Guyana’s children grasp these concepts better, so that they can matriculate at higher rates. “We have to go back to the drawing table and determine what more has to be done.”
Anyone following education trends will know that countries throughout the world are indeed struggling with Mathematics and these include developed countries. The press release from CXC on the 2013 results stated, “While there was a slight improvement on Mathematics over last year, performance remained below average with 35 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades, compared with 33 per cent last year.”
Commenting on this year’s CSEC results, this is what the Minister of Education from Cayman Islands said, “While the numbers of Year 12 students graduating with 5 or more high-level passes has grown significantly, and we continue to celebrate this success, the same cannot be said of the numbers achieving a high level pass in Maths. Since 2006, the percentage of students gaining an A-C grade or Grade I-III in CXC has ranged between 25-29%. This just is not good enough. We need to do better and I believe our students can do better. As a country and an education system, we must embrace the notion that 'maths counts', and continue to push for improvements.”
Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson and Ludger Woessmann in a report entitled, “US Math Performance in Global Perspective”, quoted the following from the 2010 report, of the “Rising above the Gathering Storm,” “Our overall public school system…has shown little sign of improvement, particularly in mathematics and science.”
The Ministry of Education is not justifying the performance of Guyanese students by showing that the problem is global but is merely pointing out that it is not sensible to accuse the Ministry and the Minister of Education of creating a National Disaster based on the CSEC Maths results. The Ministry was the first to admit that there is a problem and has been implementing several initiatives to address it. These include Continuous Professional Development Courses in English and Mathematics for teachers, incentives for those teachers who graduate from these courses, additional training for teachers in low performing schools, television programmes for students in Maths and English and the Maths and English pilot programme.
There are many explanations for the problem of high failure rates in mathematics, thus the Ministry has to adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the problem. No single-minded approach would solve the problem. In the meantime the Ministry has to acknowledge and encourage students who have done well and the Minister should be applauded for personally meeting these students to offer them congratulations on behalf of all Guyana. In addition, Guyanese must not let the outcry of some critics drown the fact that Guyana has dominated the CXC awards over the last ten years. Moreover, these students come from rural districts as well, a sure indication that quality education is becoming increasingly accessible to all Guyanese.
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