Educator Blasts CSEC Results

Details

Education

Monday, 20 August 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St. John's - Veteran educator Anthonyson King has described as "worrying" the high number of students who passed less than three subjects in the 2012 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exam.

"There were too many students getting zero, one and two subjects," he said."After five years in secondary school you should be able to pass at least three subjects."

According to the statistics, 21 of the students who sat the exam failed to get any passes, while 97 got only one. Another 81 students got two subjects.

Director of Education Jacintha Pringle said all taxpayers should be concerned about this problem.

And while she noted that the Ministry of Education and teachers need to look at themselves, she said students with poor performances often fail to apply themselves.

The figures also show that just under a quarter of the 1,230 students who wrote CSEC passed at least five subjects.

Compounding the problem, King said, was the sub-par performance in  English A (57.8 per cent), which gives the appearance that it is now a "foreign language" since students performed better in Spanish (75.2 per cent) and French (64.1 per cent).

Though the overall pass rate of males and females were even, there were far less boys sitting the exam than girls.

"There needs to be a study to find out why males are dropping out before they sit the exam because at the Common Entrance level the numbers are generally on par over the last 10 years," King said pointing to the 761 to 1,345 difference.

He believes this is due to a lack of understanding by students and a direct result of them not reading.

Continuing his assessment, he noted that a minimal number of students got Grade Ones in Math and Geography while there was a decline in students sitting Caribbean History.

King has put forward a list of recommendations in light of the CSEC results, same as he did last year.

These include a study of CXC’s report relating to Mathematics, a meeting between education officials and secondary school Math teachers to discuss the areas that need to be strengthened and to plan for the next year, and an appreciation of the nature of Math.

The former Math teacher is also suggesting students be required to do more practice utilising past CSEC papers, and that greater focus be placed on mental arithmetic and multiplication tables.

He put the blame for the low number of teachers with Math degrees squarely at the door of the Ministry of Education. The ministry has said only three of the 75 educators teaching the subject have Math degrees.

"It's the ministry that recruits and hire people to put them in the secondary schools so if there is a problem now, it's the ministry that has to rectify it," he said.

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King also responded to the authority's proposal to introduce a country-wide community volunteer Math programme.

"We already have people who are known to be good in this area...why not formulate a programme where you use these people to train the other teachers? If we continue to do the same things we will continue to get the same results," he said.

Earlier this year, King took the initiative to begin producing a 10-part Math programme, four of which were broadcast on the state-owned ABS TV.

However, it faltered due to lack of funding.

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