Cabinet has approved the expenditure of $48.6 million to address what it has deemed a “crisis” in student performance at Grade Six Mathematics.
Minister of State, Joe Harmon, told reporters at yesterday’s post-cabinet press briefing that Cabinet has approved a seven-point strategy labelled the “Emergency Education intervention for improved performance in Mathematics by students in Grade Six.”
The approved intervention which is expected to address critical issues in the teaching and learning of mathematics will target the preparation and administration of a diagnostic assessment of pupils in the hinterland region before training.
It will also address the training of teachers in content and methodology; the facilitating of fortnightly cluster meetings in all regions; the recruitment of math coordinators and monitors; the training of officers and school administrators to supervise the teaching of mathematics;; the enhancement of public relations and parental involvement in the project and the acquisition of support material for the pupils as part of the project.
Last month the Ministry of the Presidency, in a statement had said that Cabinet examined the “unsatisfactory” results as a matter of “extreme urgency and grave national importance” and had called on the Ministry of Education and its technical advisors to identify all appropriate steps needed to remedy this situation.
The government has not made public the actual performance rate of students at Grade Six in any subject. Cabinet has however, said that for many years Guyana has “consistently failed to achieve acceptable pass rates” and acknowledged that this year’s examination which was designed by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) exposed “even more the weakness of the previous approach to education adopted by the Ministry of Education….” with its “increased focus on reasoning and decreased emphasis on retention.”
The last time the pass rate for Grade Six Mathematics was made public was in 2014 when 31.52% of the 15,227 candidates who sat the examinations that year achieved 50% or more in the subject area.
Asked yesterday, what the 2016 pass rate was Harmon said that it was a matter of public record which had been released by the Ministry of Education. When it was highlighted that this was not the case he committed the Ministry to releasing this information while explaining that the greater areas of concern were found to be in the hinterland region as opposed to the coast.
While $48, 682, 690 has been approved to implement the programme until December 2016, the Minister further announced that the government has also approved additional funds to finance a more long-term project continuing in 2017.
According to Harmon the strategy is already being implemented with the National Centre for Education Research and Development (NCERD) spearheading the acquisition of resources.
He noted that NCERD is considering several options for this acquisition including the rehiring of teachers who left the education sector due to retirement and the development of measures to facilitate overseas recruitment so as to increase the available number of persons able to teach the subject. Also being considered are monthly capacity building conferences for teachers across the country so as to prepare them to implement the long term strategy.
