Let’s start the conversation on education reform

Dear Editor,
The announcement by Minister Priya Manickchand that the Ministry of Education is actively considering the possibility of scrapping the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) is probably the best news coming out of the Ministry of Education in a long time.
This major education reform initiative would be a game-changer: a tipping point that drives the modernisation and reimagining of education in Guyana, and would have a ripple effect across Caricom, thereby placing Guyana in a trailblazer role.
I have argued much that the NGSA is a colonial relic, the root of all educational evil. It was a pernicious system set up to sort and sift students, allocating the small percentage of those academically gifted to 6 top schools, while others are relegated to schools of poorer quality.
The rich folks like this system, as QC, Bishops’, etc. gives them bragging rights among their friends. Rich folks usually care about their own children, not all children. If there is a system that stratifies people and creates winners and losers, that’s not a problem for them, as long as they are in the winner’s category.
The affluent might object to dismantling the NGSA, which was kept on for six decades after independence; but the time for dismantling the NGSA has come, as it has no usefulness in a new, modern economy and society. The sooner we abandon it, the better it would be for us.
The NGSA is what is called high-stress, high-pressure, “high-stakes” testing. In our primary schools, all energies are focused on preparing for the NGSA in the sixth grade. Teachers “drill and kill,” teaching to the test and, some say, teaching the test. Extra lessons proliferate, snapping up the free time of our children. Some say authentic education is lost when the education system is driven by a test; a single measure that determines a child’s entire future and life chances.
After NGSA, a few rise and the majority falls and fails, and many eventually drop out of school at a time when we need as many skilled, trained workers as possible. Last week, we saw how students were praying, parents were holding up cheerleading placards, pictures were posted of the breakfast and lunch we feed the students, some companies placed ads in the papers wishing students well – all part of the high-stakes drama!
Why did we allow the NGSA to continue for so long after Independence and decolonisation? Where were our brilliant education designers, our education reformers, the children advocates, to allow the NGSA malpractice to continue? The NGSA negates learning styles and multiple intelligences. It’s a “one size fits all” test.
A popular cartoon deriding single measure standardized testing says, “For a fair selection, everybody has to take the same exam: Please climb that tree,” said the teacher to the bird, monkey, penguin, elephant. Someone said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
So, if we get rid of the NGSA, what do we do with the top 6 schools? The students who usually get placed at the top 6 schools are mostly “academically gifted,” or “gifted and talented.” They are the “in spite of” children, who would do well regardless of poor teachers or poor schools. They are self-driven, capable of accelerated learning and advanced learning. They learn at a faster pace, and they can do college work earlier.
We can convert the top 6 schools to “special focus” academies, and ask only those students who want to get in to do an optional admissions test to be admitted to those special programmes.
For instance, we can create an Academy of Medicine/Health Sciences; Academy of Law; a STEM Academy, or School of Science, Technology, Math and Engineering; a School of the Arts; an Oil and Gas Academy; or “Early College” high schools. Each of these academies can award both a high school diploma and an Associate degree at graduation.
That would require our education designers and experts to create new high school models. With the ongoing building of new schools and a new push to upgrade all existing high schools, students can automatically attend better quality neighbourhood schools.
So, let’s start the conversations and brainstorming, and get public input on how we may restructure our education system. Thanks to our Education Minister for opening the door!

Yours sincerely,
Dr Jerry Jailall