Children should improve performance in all subjects – Chief Education Officer

NGSA 2019

Guyana’s top performers at the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) were revealed on Wednesday, and the Education Ministry has commenced its analysis to better these grades next year.

Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson explained that an overall improvement across all subjects would be ideal
“We want to see our children improve in their performance overall in every subject area … We want to see a universal movement in all the subject areas. We have to make sure that we’re not focusing on [Mathematics and English] at the expense of others. That is something that is brought sharply into focus at this time,” Hutson said.
This position is critical, since only one subject area – Mathematics – recorded progress when compared to last year’s results. The other three areas – English, Science and Social Studies – saw a reduced number of students gaining 50 per cent or more.
It was explained that the Mathematics campaign which was previously implemented in schools would be extended to other subject areas, and remedial programmes would continue for slow performers.
“We have always been cognisant of the fact that we need to have programmes to improve the performance of our children. I think the Mathematics camp has shown some positive results, because we have seen improved performance in all the regions. What is important for us to recognise are those subjects that are critical for us to matriculate. Our students have been consistently doing well, that is in English and Mathematics,” the Chief Education Officer said.
He added, “Remediation is something that our teachers have always been doing. We need to discover the weaknesses of our children and strategies that will help to develop those weaknesses. We have seen that in the camps and we hope to use that kind of information and extend it to other subject areas.”
Technology and robotics have also been taking the classrooms by storm along with the introduction of smart classrooms.
“We have consistently been training our teachers in content and methodology. That is something that we are moving towards and we’re looking at a strong appraisal system, where our teachers will be brought to account for their stewardship. We’re going in the realm of robotics and smart classrooms. We’re trying to use technology now … Our children tend to be motivated when we use these kinds of mediums for teaching and learning,” he expressed.
Presently, the Ministry is awaiting data from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) to determine what topics students were challenged by and how the situation should be addressed.
“Once we would have seen the items where they would have fallen down, we would be able to take it from there, because we would really need to know what are the specific areas or topics that our children might have been affected.”
Venisha Lall of CV Nunes Primary and Dave Chowtie of Graham’s Hall Primary tied for the top spot at this year’s examination.