Petrina Francis and Dionne Rose, Gleaner Writers
REID, GRIFFIN, BROWN
WITH THE performance of Jamaican students in English language and mathematics in the 2004 Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) exams well below the regional average, several educators suggested yesterday that schools needed to adapt the examination syllabus to their particular curriculum as one of the strategies to get improved results.
This year, only 39 per cent of the students who sat the English language examination passed, a decline from 42 per cent last year. Only 25 per cent managed to pass mathematics, 15 per cent below the regional average of 40 per cent.
The educators, who were attending an Editors' Forum at The Gleaner's North Street offices in central Kingston, argued that teachers should properly 'sequence' the CXC syllabus so that the students would be taught systematically.
"I think perhaps one of the weaknesses which we have in terms of the exams results (is that) CXC produces a syllabus and basically it is (just) a syllabus of content," noted Radley Reid, principal of Campion College, one of Jamaica's outstanding high schools in terms of scholastic achievement.
"In other words, you can't expect to teach a student to learn something at a point where the student has not learnt something else (before), which requires (further) learning to take place. I believe from my general knowledge that is perhaps one of the problems," he said.
To demonstrate the importance of sequential instruction, Mr. Reid said his staff revamped a textbook for Information Technology (IT), which was on the rental scheme at his school. The original book, he noted, was geared at revision and did not provide students with adequate information to grasp the subject. His three IT teachers wrote three textbooks last year for grades
seven to nine students and, as a result, the school had a 100 per cent pass rate where there were 104 distinctions (grade one) and two credits (grade two).
"The selection of text is very important," declared the Campion College principal.
In his remarks, Dr. Stafford Griffith, Pro Registrar for CXC, said that one possible solution to improving performance in subjects such as mathematics and English language may be to adopt the teaching methodology used by teachers of vocational technical subjects, which ensures that students achieve prescribed levels of competencies before moving to the next stage or topic.
He believes that there is "something in the way in which the technical subjects are taught that may be transferred to the teaching of some of these subjects that provide a serious challenge for our children."
Added Dr. Griffith: "This matter of helping to improve performance is multi- dimensional, but it seems to me that the way in which teachers prepare students for the technical subjects respond very well to the fact that we have a criterion reference examination."
Mrs. Adelle Brown, acting chief education officer at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, told the Forum that the ministry was proceeding to implement on a national scale the reform of school curriculum to make them more relevant.
Other issues highlighted at the Forum include the need for teachers who are properly trained, teacher stability, teacher utilisation, the management of resources and the learning environment. All these are essential if the nation's schools are to produce improved results in the regional examination.
