Most people in this country have probably never heard of the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, as it is better known. Intended for OECD member states and others less wealthy which volunteer for inclusion, PISA assesses the skills of 15-16 year-olds in reading, maths and science every three years. Half a million youngsters in 79 countries across the globe sit the assessments.
The tests provide an alternative view to national exams, and give education managers an idea of how their students are performing in comparison with those from other nations. In addition, it was hoped when the tests were inaugurated that they would supply insights into why some school systems performed better than others, so that the less successful ones could adopt the better model. In an overall sense, however, that does not appear to have happened, and perhaps in many cases there are justifications for this.
Even although Guyana has never participated − and one has good reason for supposing that if it did the outcome would at the very least be something of a shock – the Economist maintains that schools often have less influence over results than most people think. Culture and social factors such as adult literacy, it says, are more important. Furthermore, the magazine goes on to report that the data suggest there is not much of a relationship between financial outlay and PISA results above a cumulative expenditure of approximately US$50,000 per pupil between the ages of six and 15. That said, of course, in our case, we do not reach anything like that level of outlay on our pupils.
The UK has relatively high levels of expenditure on its different school systems in comparison with some other developed nations, but still its results are less than impressive. However, this year it showed what were called “modest improvements.” It is the case of maths which is most interesting and which may hold some lessons for us. Where that particular subject was concerned, Britain moved from 27th position in the tables three years ago to 18th, according to the latest results. In fact, the advance was greater in England than in other parts of the UK (there are four devolved school systems), and it was here that the authorities had gone out of their way to change teaching techniques in order to achieve a better outcome.
There has been a great deal of discussion in Guyana about placing emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) education, and the need for “smart” classrooms in order to integrate this successfully into the curriculum. According to the last edition of the Guyana Review, “ʻ[s]mart’ classrooms remain part of the bureaucratic ‘gaff’ while ‘chalk and talk’ still prevails.” In addition to this, by and large conventional teacher training “remains largely in the traditional mould,” said the Review. The inevitable conclusion was that this was hampering the successful implementation of STEM.
What the English have discovered is that ‘chalk and talk’ has more to recommend it than has been recognised in recent times – at least where the teaching of mathematics is concerned. It is countries in the Far East, including China, Singapore and Hong Kong, which have enjoyed a position at the top of the league tables in maths for a very long time. It should be noted, however, that it is not China as a whole which enters pupils in PISA, but only four of its provinces, namely, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. That said, the OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher made reference to the fact that these provinces had proved effective at making sure all pupils, including the disadvantaged, attained a high level, and that even the most deprived 10% of pupils there had better results than the average for the UK.
A few years ago, the English decided they were going to learn from the Chinese and import Chinese-style maths teaching into the classroom. According to the BBC, experts have said that this is what is likely to have driven up England’s results. The British national broadcaster quoted Prof Valsa Koshy, an expert in maths education at Brunel University, as saying: “Importing maths teaching from Far Eastern countries means there has been an emphasis on children needing to master the basic facts and traditional skills such as times tables. This used to be laughed at as too old fashioned.”
It went on to describe the exchange programme arranged by the Department for Education between English and Shanghai schools, which made it possible for English maths teachers to learn about Chinese teaching methods. Subsequent to that, a £41 million project was instituted to train primary maths teachers in Chinese teaching methods. It was called the “maths mastery approach.”
So what exactly do these methods involve? An older generation of Guyanese teachers would certainly recognise them, or at least many of them. In the first place, according to the BBC, it requires children being taught as a whole class, “building depth of understanding of the structure of the subject.” It might be mentioned that teaching pupils as a whole class will inevitably involve a considerable amount of ‘chalk and talk.’ However, this is supported by the use of high-quality textbooks, something which is in somewhat short supply in Guyana.
Ben Durbin of the English National Foundation for Educational Research, which administered the PISA tests in the UK, was quoted as saying it was “encouraging” to see that the boost in the score for maths was driven by improvements among boys and lower achieving students. Mr Schleicher, for his part, however, observed that it would take a “very long time” for the UK to catch up with the highest achieving countries. His suggestion for improvements was to invest more in teachers’ skills.
One cannot avoid the feeling that Guyana can learn from this particular maths’ teaching experiment in England. Teaching whole classes is already the norm in the school system here; what is at issue is the quality of that teaching because of the poor level of teaching skills of many primary school educators. This will be compounded by a lack of really high-quality textbooks. Perhaps the whole question of teacher training should be looked at again, and the poverty of the educational background of some of the recruits into the profession addressed. At present, an appreciable number would not be in any position to manage a ‘smart’ classroom, although with significantly upgraded skills they could perhaps teach in line with a “maths mastery approach.”
