#BTColumn – Improving our quality of education

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY. 

by John Goddard

Now that the new President’s address to Parliament has informed the public of government’s intention to abolish the Common Entrance Examination and introduce Middle Schools and Schools of Excellence (whatever these are), I consider it necessary to offer my two cents worth on the need to improve the quality of education in our island Republic.

First of all, modern Barbados requires a targeted and sustained effort to strengthen Mathematics, technology and Science. From primary level, children must be exposed to effective teaching in these areas with a view to fostering an interest in experimentation and creative pursuits.

Our country relies too heavily on the consumption of goods and services produced by others; emphasis must now shift to getting our young people to create. For example, there is a vast market for electronic and computer games.

What prevents our bright youth from being able to produce for even a small segment of that market? Our scholars need to be guided in the direction of robotics, alternative energy and the food industry among other areas of economic activity relevant to the 21st century. We still need doctors, civil engineers and lawyers, but not in the large numbers that we are currently producing.

To achieve our goals, teaching in Mathematics, in particular, must be improved. Too many students are turned off from that subject because of poor teaching. There is need for specialist Mathematics teachers in primary schools, charged with the responsibility of developing a love for and interest in the subject. We can no longer afford to let loose on our children teachers who, themselves, hated the subject at school or, for whatever reason, failed to master it.

Educational authorities must demonstrate that they value technical and vocational education as well as sports and culture. The Samuel Jackman Institute of Technology should become one of our centres of excellence, with graduates being offered national scholarships and exhibitions to the same extent that Sixth Form and the Barbados Community College students presently enjoy.

Provision needs to be made, as well, for vocational schools fully equipped to prepare young people for opportunities in the building industry, auto mechanics, auto body repairs and Agro-industries. Such schools will take students, who have reached third form of secondary school and have shown an aptitude for and interest in vocational studies.

Transfers will be done after consultation with parents, teachers and students. This will reduce the level of frustration of pupils who have no interest in pursuing strictly academic courses, but are, under the current system, forced to go through the motions until they reach fifth form with the resultant skipping of classes and display of deviant behaviour.

More than thirty years ago, I designed an oral Communications programme for use in secondary schools.

Unfortunately, after much discussion about the importance of oral communication skills, no room has yet been found for this necessary area of the school curriculum in Barbados.

The need becomes patently obvious whenever we listen to sportsmen being questioned by sports journalists on radio and television. Responses take the form of monosyllables, and poor grammar when they try to render sentences. Some of the journalists, themselves, struggle to ask intelligent questions.

Nor are some of our professionals much better.

I listened to one recently trying to give information on a topic in his area of expertise, and, by the end of his presentation, I was none the wiser. And my challenge had nothing to do with the technical language used. Rather, it related to structure and enunciation. When will artistes, broadcasters and others learn that the “double” in “double entendre” is not to be pronounced like double in “double century”, for example.

I am prepared to volunteer my help in the preparation of an oral Communications programme to be fully integrated into language teaching at primary and secondary schools. Perhaps, the climate is more conducive to this effort, now that CSEC has introduced an SBA component for English A.

Seriously though, our young people should no longer be handicapped by an inability to express themselves in Standard English. Former West Indies captain, Jason Holder is one whose public comments and responses to journalists could provide the bench mark for others.

There is no room in the modern world for “tonguetied” sportsmen or persons in any other field of endeavour.

Let us hasten to put a programme in place in our schools to improve the speech competence of students.I have, on previous occasions, spoken about the need for four or five of the present sixth form schools to be turned into sixth form Colleges specializing in Sciences, Arts, Humanities, Sports and Culture as well as Technology.

I would propose The Lodge in the East, Foundation in the South, Alexandra in the North and the more central schools of Harrison College and Queen’s College. The criteria for entering would be similar to those now used for admission to Sixth form. Of course, the Barbados Community College will continue its comprehensive courses of study.

There are, of course, more changes that are needed to make education more relevant to and useful for the needs of twenty-first century Barbados, but we do not have to copy parts or all of the system, used in the United States of America. I will return to that matter another time.

John Goddard, retired, but always an educator.