Too many subjects?

Announcing the CSEC results on Wednesday, Minister of Education Nicolette Henry said that this year, 251 candidates had achieved Grade Ones in eight or more subjects of which 55 had gained 12 or more Grade Ones. It is a remarkable achievement, for which all the students involved deserve credit. The top performer was Raina Toney of Anna Regina Secondary, who achieved a staggering 19 Grade One passes. She was followed by Alex Abraham with 18 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos, Charrandat Narine with 18 Grade Ones and one Grade Two, Samuel Haynes with 18 Grade Ones, and Donlee Castello with 17 Grade Ones and three Grade Twos.

While no one can dispute the nature of their accomplishment, there are many who might question whether the regimen to which they had to subject themselves in order to attain it was advisable for young persons their age. In the first place, it involved serious sleep deprivation in most cases. Mr Haynes, for example, told this newspaper he would sleep three to four hours a night, while Ms Toney also acknowledged a lot of sleepless nights. As for Mr Castello, he reported that the most challenging part of his journey was the hour-long drive from Tuschen to George-town. “Sometimes I would sleep on my way home,” he told Stabroek News. He went on to recount how he would arrive home at 9 pm after lessons, and then sleep for two hours before getting up to study. Daniel Roopchand, who gained 16 Grade Ones and one Grade Two, also confessed to sleepless nights.

Although he never mentioned it specifically, one can perhaps infer that there was less sleep pressure on 16-year-old Vijay Sharma, who secured 16 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos. If true, the reason for this would probably be because he was unable to attend extra lessons, unlike most of the other top performers. 

The scientific evidence has been clear for years: going without sleep, especially for young people as in this case, is injurious to health. The National Sleep Foundation, among other agencies, recommends that teenagers get eight to ten hours of sleep a night, and they all warn that a sleep deficiency can affect the ability to learn, concentrate and solve problems. In other words, the extra time afforded by sleeping only three to four hours a night would be offset by the fact that learning and absorbing would take longer and be more of a challenge, and that there might be other health consequences as well in certain cases.

A significant proportion of out-of-school hours were no doubt occupied by extra lessons. And unlike what goes on at the level of the Grade Six Assessment, these were probably necessary in many instances. Brianna Gopie, for example, who secured Grade Ones in 16 subjects, said she attended extra lessons every day. However, in fairness, it is difficult to imagine that a secondary school could timetable 19 subjects or even a great deal less than that, to accommodate one student within the framework of the average lessons plan. In addition, as Mr Haynes explained, he began to prepare in the fourth form with lessons for subjects which represented his weak area. One presumes that some of the others used extra lessons to concentrate on their weak subjects too.

For all of that, some of those we interviewed, such as Messrs Haynes and Sharma, as well as Ms Toney, related how they still tried to maintain their social activities to a greater or lesser degree. One of the traditional criticisms of sitting a large number of subjects has always been that it curtailed such activities, and impaired a student’s ability to become a well-rounded person. Perhaps some of the candidates have taken this on board, but in the attempt to introduce a greater degree of balance into their lives, have put themselves under even greater pressure, since they have not reduced the number of examinations they sit.

The older generation is no doubt mystified by the fact that today’s students can take so many exams at one time, when it was not possible for them to do so in their day.  The reason is quite simply that there are so many more subjects on the curriculum nowadays than there were years ago. Furthermore, the old ‘O’ levels, which were the equivalent of the modern CSEC, with the exception, arguably, of English Language and Maths, were framed for those whose intentions had something of a scholastic tinge. As a consequence, the range of content areas was far narrower, and covered, for the want of a better term, more academic-type subjects. Commendably, CXC wanted to offer qualifications as well to those who had specific vocational interests, hence the inclusion of subjects with which the old generation of examiners would not have been familiar.

The current cohorts of high achievers, therefore, are opting to tag on to the traditional core selection, subjects such as Physical Education, Office Administration, Principles of Business, Electronic Document Preparation and Management, and Information Technology, etc.  One can only remark that schools should require all pupils to engage in some form of physical education, but only those who have it in mind to pursue it as a vocation or could have some other need of it in the future, should be taking an exam in it. And why should those who have an academic career of one sort or another in mind – and most of those we spoke to had – be distracted by Electronic Document Preparation or Office Administration? Those exams are for candidates who are not opting for the scholastic route, and think they might be following a different path in life. In any event, the content these subjects cover can always be acquired at any point when that becomes necessary, and in the meantime, they do nothing to enhance the top performers’ credentials.

The other reason, perhaps, for the plethora of subjects sat by the high achievers, is that some of them, while they are not duplicates, partly duplicate content. If one is taking individual Science subjects, for example, there is hardly any need to sit Integrated Science as well, although that seems to have been done in some instances. And there are other examples. The impression which is given is that usefulness for the purposes of a future direction is less important than quantity. The large number of exams is justified by claiming that the more which are taken then the more likely it is that the candidate will become well-rounded. It should be said that a schedule geared only to exams will not make a student well-rounded. That will be achieved by wide reading, exploring topics which are not necessarily on the syllabus, and for some, following what is going on in one’s environment and the world. All of that, however, takes time, which the top performers will not have at their disposal.

So why the drive to sit more and more exams? It can’t be just so one can be declared the region’s top student, although Guyana has certainly achieved that distinction on more than one occasion. The answer was supplied by the Minister of Education, and it seems to be linked to the matter of scholarships. At the CSEC level, there is only one government scholarship – the Presidential Scholarship – which is awarded to the top performer, so more and more students are struggling to get Grade One passes in more and more subjects in order to qualify. This scholarship allows the winner to pursue studies in any area at any university in the world. As we reported, the Public Service scholarships in contrast, only make provision for overseas study if the programme is not offered at the University of Guyana and is useful to Guyana’s developmental goals.

In earlier days, government scholarships in the form of the Guyana Scholarships, were only available at the ‘A’ level (i.e. CAPE) stage, and consequently, there was no particular incentive to pass large numbers of subjects at ‘O’ level, even assuming that had been possible. Nowadays, however, unlike the British and British derived tertiary institutions, the North American universities do not require CAPE qualifications for entry, which is presumably why the Presidential Scholarship is now offered at the CSEC level. As it is, Minister Henry’s advice to the students was to look beyond government for scholarship opportunities.

Since several of the students we spoke to intended to move on to sixth form, it is unfortunate that they had to go through all that stress; they could have got into sixth form with far fewer subjects and even less stellar grades for some of those.

There have been suggestions before that there should be a limit placed on the number of subjects students can sit for CSEC, but these have always run into a storm of criticism. One suspects that things will only change if the government takes a different approach to the circumstances under which the Presidential Scholarship is awarded.