Some $48M has been approved by Cabinet for emergency intervention to strengthen the teaching capacity of Mathematics at the Grade 6 level in public schools. Students across the countries have been struggling for years with Mathematics and government in recent months has deemed this a crisis which needs fixing immediately. President David Granger had mandated Minister of Education Dr Rupert Roopnaraine to meet with technical officers and staff of his ministry to find solutions to address the issue.
Over the years, Guyana has failed to achieve acceptable pass rates in Mathematics, a critical core subject. This year the Ministry of Education has contracted the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) to conduct the examination for the Grade Six students here and it was discovered that the different assessment illustrated the deficiencies in the system.
Dr Roopnaraine presented his report to Cabinet on Tuesday possible solutions, Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary Joseph Harmon told reporters on Thursday during his weekly post Cabinet press briefing held at the Ministry of the Presidency. According to Harmon, several recommendations were made and approved and those include the training of teachers in content and methodology; facilitating fortnightly cluster meetings in all regions; the recruitment of Mathematics coordinators and monitors; the training of officers and school administrators to supervise the teaching of Mathematics; the preparing and administering a diagnostic assessment of pupils in the hinterland regions before training; the enhancement of public relations, parental involvement in the education of the children and the acquisition of support material for the students.
“Having had a very thorough discussion on the matter, Cabinet approved the proposed plan and agreed to the allocation of a sum of $48, 682,690 for the expenditure and strategy that will deal with the issues before and up to the end of December 2016 and the allocation of a further sum to be spent on the strategy in 2017 and going forward,” said Harmon.
He explained that preparatory work has already started and full implementation was pending Cabinet’s approval and release of funds. As part of the reform process teachers will be recruited from overseas to fill the existing gaps. “…as you know, over the years many of our good teachers have actually migrated to the Caribbean and as far as Botswana in some cases and certainly once we provide the correct environment…and most of them have started coming back…we believe we can attract some of those teachers who had left in the first case.”
The Minister of State said too that it is a “very clear and viable option” that would be exercised by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, retired teachers will also be returned to the education system while the pool of persons capable of teaching mathematics will also be expanded. “NCERD (National Center for Education Resource Development), that basically is the entity within the Ministry of Education, that deals with these matters. They have actually looked at the entire situation across the country and several measures have been proposed. One of course is to rehire teachers that have been within the system and left because of their age or several other issues.”
That aside, there would be country-wide conferences planned for all mathematics teachers. Those teachers will either be brought to Georgetown or in cases where Regions with the requisite expertise can accommodate the teachers the conferences will be held outside of the city. “This has already started,” said Harmon who noted that the combination of the retired teachers, the specific training that is going to be given to the mathematics teachers in the system will serve in boosting the level of mathematics taught and received at the primary school level. Harmon disclosed that a contract has been awarded to a consulting firm to examine the existing curriculum and made recommendations for improvements. He said “the consultant should be here anytime this month to start the work.”
He believes that the Primary level must be targeted as it is the foundation of learning; that is not to say that the Secondary and Tertiary levels will not be targeted in the long run. “It is not as if we are excluding at the secondary level but we consider what is happening at the Primary level to be of extreme importance now and the longer term plan of the ministry will look at the performance of the secondary level,” said the Cabinet Secretary. He believes if the problems at the Primary level are not corrected with urgency those problems will continue at both the Secondary and Tertiary levels.