Georgetown: Education officials are heartened by the fact that there has been greater interest in the subject area of mathematics among students preparing for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate Examination (CSEC). Last year the CSEC results in the area of maths saw a significant decline reflective in a below 35 percent pass rate.
But according to Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, the introduction of an ambitious programme, aimed at bolstering the performances obtained at CSEC, particularly in the area of Mathematics and English, has already started yielding satisfactory results. The Minister said that there has been evidence of renewed interest specifically in the area of Mathematics. “We are sure that since this intervention there has been renewed and certainly more interest in mathematics across the board among teachers, students and parents.”
Since becoming Minister of Education, Manickchand had introduced a pilot programme that saw Government furnishing both teachers and students at some 36 schools with relevant teaching/learning materials intended to help improve students’ performances at CSEC. The Minister revealed that it was just recently that a post CSEC examination was conducted and efforts are still being made to complete the assessment of the results. However, Manickchand noted that while she does not expect the results to be “fantastic, we will certainly be able to get a better gauge of where we are as a country.”
At the moment, she Minister revealed that there is no doubt that there has been “a rebuking of the ‘throwing up your hand syndrome’; if for nothing but that then that programme has been a success.”
However, once the results have been completely assessed it is the belief of the Minister that the Ministry will be in a better position to ascertain to what extent the programme has made a difference. She nonetheless asserted that “I don’t think that we should rely on results alone to say whether it made a real difference because if you walk around Guyana you will see people talking about Mathematics a lot more; parents are being a lot more interested in what their children are doing…”
The Minister revealed that even as efforts are being made to realise improved CSEC performances at this year’s CSEC, the Government is working assiduously to achieve universal secondary education. Already the education sector has been able to realise universal primary education that allows children at the primary age to undertake the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA). The NGSA was conducted across the country last week allowing for some 18,000 students at primary schools countrywide participate. This assessment is designed to plug students into secondary schools and according to Minister Manickchand the Ministry is now face with the challenge of ensuring that the same number of students who participated in this year’s NGSA are registered for CSEC in the next five years.
