Your Eyewitness feels some old fogies who spew out those letters – knocking the kids who passed 27 subjects at CSEC – are just plain jealous because, “in their days”, they could only write six or seven subjects!! And mostly because that was all most of them were judged capable of writing!! Maybe not…but hey!! In case they didn’t notice, as the world turns, we, humans living on it, inevitably change. Change is life, stagnation is death!! If those little mammals running around with dinosaurs hadn’t changed, we’d still be foraging in swamps!!
Well, now that the Minister has rejected any policy that mandates kids should be limited in the number of CSEC subjects they can write – and this gripe’s been expressed every year for the last decade, as the number of CSEC subjects keep rising – your Eyewitness hopes we’ll move on. He can understand if kids were forced to write these double-digit numbers of subjects; but they weren’t. In fact, one kid said as far back as when he was writing his NGSA and the topper at CSEC copped 25 subjects, that became his goal!!
So, how many subjects will kids eventually write?? Your Eyewitness thinks the limit will eventually be the number of subjects CXC offers! What is it? 35? How come they don’t complain about FORCING kids to write AT LEAST five subjects? Aren’t there thousands of kids who just can’t cope with that number?
The fact of the matter is this whole argument’s a tempest in a teacup, since there is already a system in place to evaluate and determine how many subjects can be taken.
In all schools, the students have to get the specific subjects and number of subjects APPROVED by the teachers, HODs, and eventually the headteacher. In the case of the latest exceptional performers, the teachers’ assessments were obviously vindicated, since they passed all their subjects with such flying colours. Some worry about all the non-high flyers. But the high flyers didn’t PREVENT any other student from performing as well – or even better, did they?? Kids writing double-digit numbers of subjects aren’t preventing teachers from teaching others, are they?
The demand that CSEC subjects be limited comes from a misguided urge for an “egalitarian” outcome, where no kid’s allowed to rise above others – even through his/her own efforts. This is the dumbing down compulsion that will perpetuate Guyana’s mediocrity. SVN shows every year that even low-scorers at NGSA can be high-flyers. Let the system raise all ships to their own level.
The hero Mallory, who ultimately perished trying to scale Mt Everest, was asked why he persisted. “Because it’s there!” he said.
We always need heroes who push the envelope.
…at NGSA
For donkey years, those in the educational sector have been promising a “turnaround” in the delivery of their various curricula in a more efficient manner – meaning, we’d get better results. What’s happened, however, is when they say THAT, they simply mean they’ll just intensify their efforts to “teach to the test”, so the results will APPEAR better. But even here they’ve failed abysmally!
Take the NGSA. (As Rodney Dangerfield would say, “Please!!) When it was the “Common Entrance”, there were complaints the test wasn’t accomplishing its purpose – to “evaluate” the children in their areas of strength and weakness so that remedial/ customised efforts could be made.
To date – 18 years after the “assessment” change – there hasn’t been a SINGLE review of a student’s score after they moved on to Grade 7 (high school) to follow up with remedial/customised interventions. And that’s a real good idea that’s gone to waste!!
This is the time when the kids should be taken in hand to guide them for a life of success.
…for new economy
At last, we have the possibility of employing ALL our future graduates – once we match their skill set to the needs of the new economy. As such, there should be a complete revamping of the curricula!!
