by Adrian Gibson
A revolutionary approach must be taken to improving the educational system and ensuring that at least 90 per cent of all school leavers graduate with diplomas. As I have said before, in curbing school failure/dropouts, the MOE via the schools must:
- Immediately implement policy to bring an end to socially promoting students until they graduate since they most likely leave school without a basic education and become leading candidates for a criminal lifestyle;
- Enforce the mandatory 2.0 grade point average for movement to another grade;
- Cultivate a positive school climate and produce a relevant, Bahamian-centred curriculum. The ministry must align the curriculum with the developmental needs of the country in order to imbue a strong sense of self, to speak to nation-building, to address the question of self-reliance and entrepreneurship, to teach the Constitution, etc;
- Encourage peer tutoring by offering stipends to more advanced students for tutoring rendered to their struggling peers;
- Recruit more remedial teachers;
- Further develop the educational programme and the training of prospective teachers at COB;
- Increase evaluations by psychological services for troubled students;
- Require all failing students to attend summer school;
- Limit the participation of those students who are inclined to become involved in extra-curricular activities but are unable to pass a test and/or are uninterested in completing homework or in school as a whole save for those sports and other extracurricular activities;
- Raise the pay of teachers and provide more incentives in order to recruit the best and brightest minds to the profession;
- Modernise classrooms and incorporate more technology, which the children of today are surrounded with at home and everywhere they go and that can be used as tools to foster learning. When will all classrooms be outfitted with promethean boards/cable tv/internet to foster interactive learning?;
- Reduce class sizes. This would allow for more one-on-one attention to be given to students by teachers. However, this would also call for the construction of more schools.
- Get rid of this concept of standardised testing. We must develop other means of assessment. Children learn differently. Embrace it. Not all students are academically inclined and, as a former educator, I know that some students would amaze you with their technical and vocational skills, but fail every exam put before them. Besides, the BGCSE is not recognized outside of The Bahamas!
- Hire, promote and/or recruit a new executive team at the MOE. Lionel Sands and his team have been an abysmal failure. Mr Sands has been one of the worst directors of education in the last 20 years. It is high time for Mr Sands and crew to be shipped out and that includes many of the current Deputy and Assistant Directors, District Superintendents, Senior Education Officers, etc. We need new ideas and a new direction for education in this country. Why are they still there?
- Find more strict means and ways of holding parents accountable. More often than not, some parents are too lax and unconcerned about their children’s education. They fail to attend PTA meetings, to meet with teachers privately, to assist the children with homework, to purchase the necessary work books and/or to even pick up report cards. This is nothing short of shameful.
- Complete the draft of the 2020 vision that is proposed to have been outlined for the ministry. How far is the bipartisan committee with these plans? It is needed now more than ever. No doubt, myself and others would certainly like to contribute to that;
- We need to launch a pilot school programme where those brightest students who are academically inclined go to a school much like the old Government High and those who are best at technical and vocational studies can go to a special school for that. I think the nation would be pleased with the long term results.
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First published in the The Tribune under the byline, Young Man's View, here…
