#BTColumn – PERFORMING true education reform (Part 2)

In the first part of this article (published in the BT E-paper on Tuesday, June 20), I started to look at education reform using the acronym PERFORMING to provide a more extensive examination of what it would take to transform the Barbados education system.

So far, I have examined Practicable, Effective, Relevant, Fair and in this second part we look at Outcome-focused, Research-based, Modern, Inclusive, Nationally-equitable, and Globally-competitive.

Outcome-focused

It is important, when considering the processes involved in education reform, to focus on the desired outcomes of the education system. Currently around 80 per cent of young people in Barbados leave high school without obtaining at least four subjects at CXC. So only around 20 per cent gain certificates that allow them to access jobs that can lead to good careers or to carry on their education in sixth forms and beyond.

But what if this were the other way round and 80 per cent were leaving school with good qualifications and only 20 per cent without? Surely this is a pipe dream and impossible to achieve? Well actually, no it’s not. This is now the case in New Zealand. But it was not always so. When I went out to teach in the high school system in 1971 outcomes were similar to what they are now in Barbados, that is, at age 16 only around 20 per cent achieved four or more certificates in the equivalent of CXC, and around 80 per cent left school as academic failures.

Thirty years later, by 2001, secondary schools had adopted three levels of the New Zealand Certificate of Educational Achievement (NZCEA), the first taken at age 16 years. Each can be obtained by gaining 80 credits at one of three achievement levels. Around four per cent are awarded NZCEA with Excellence, 16  per cent with Merit and 60 per cent with Achieved. The 20 per cent who do not pass are able to return to school to obtain the necessary credits to gain NZCEA in the future if they want to. This suggests that future education reforms in Barbados should consider the development of a credit-based system in secondary schools, based on continuous assessments as well as examinations, to replace the exclusively examination based one currently in place.

 

Research-based

A key part of education reform must be that teachers are helped to leave behind some traditional ineffective approaches and be encouraged to use teaching techniques and strategies that are based on solid evidence of their effectiveness in facilitating student learning. In order to facilitate this, eight key evidence-based strategies that can be used by all teachers to improve student outcomes have been identified along with links to videos of them being used in classrooms, to help teachers learn how to use them effectively (Hornby & Greaves, 2022).

The rationale for using these eight strategies (in italics) is that developing teacher-student rapport is a pre-cursor to facilitating optimal learning, while use of formative assessment enables teachers to identify student’s strengths and needs and to plan their teaching to address these. Direct instruction provides a guide to teachers in the steps needed for effective teaching and teaching metacognitive strategies helps students to learn more effectively. Implementing peer tutoring strategies helps students to learn together in order to maximise achievement and cooperative learning strategies facilitate social and academic learning. Functional behaviour analysis facilitates the management of student behaviour and prevents classroom disruption and supporting parental involvement both at school and in the home produces optimal academic and social outcomes. Providing training to support teachers in implementing these and other research-based strategies needs to be an essential part of education reform.

 

Modern

Education reforms must include modernisation of classrooms in all schools. The days of chalk and talk at blackboards or whiteboards should be a thing of the past. Every classroom in primary, secondary and special schools should, for example, have an interactive whiteboard with a reliable internet connection. These are operated from a laptop computer which is assigned to each teacher so they can take it home each evening to prepare the next day’s lessons on it.

The interactive whiteboard combines verbal, auditory and tactile learning modes and multi-sensory methods to encourage participation. It scaffolds learning through its technical and pedagogical interactivity. Its multi-modal interface fosters learning across the curriculum with pupils of all ages and needs. This sophisticated technology will require training for teachers so that they can make use of its wide range of applications.

In primary schools this will improve the teaching of literacy and numeracy. In secondary schools it will enhance teaching across the curriculum from arts subjects through technical and vocational education. In special schools and classes it will increase engagement in learning for children with a wide range of special needs. This initiative will be a major expense that will require getting funding from external agencies, service clubs, and the business community, but is an essential component of modernising the education system.

 

Inclusive 

The MoE needs to have a published policy on the inclusion and education of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This policy must reflect the current reality in Barbados that the vast majority of these children are educated in mainstream schools, with a small minority, those with more severe and complex needs, being educated in special schools or special units attached to mainstream schools. There is a need for specific legislation on children with SEND that specifies the responsibilities for meeting special needs for both the MoE and schools. For example, in the USA, legislation specifies six principles: accepting students with SEND and providing needed services; children being formally assessed and parents receiving guidelines about the services available; schools being required to set up Individualised Education Programmes (IEPs) for all children with significant special needs; schools being required to educate children in mainstream schools to the maximum extent possible; parents being fully involved in designing programmes; and, having safeguards to ensure children’s rights are maintained are included.

The MoE should provide guidelines for schools that must be followed, for example, using IEPs for those children with more severe needs, and support from teacher-aides for those with less severe needs.

Every school, primary and secondary, should be required to have a qualified Special Needs or Learning Support Coordinator. That is a teacher to coordinate the schools’ special needs provision, identify children with SEND, provide support and guidance to teachers, and liaise with the MoE, other agencies and parents. Professional development on teaching children with SEND should be provided for teachers in all mainstream schools through input into initial training and ongoing in-service training. Advanced training should also be made available for teachers in special schools and units, and for special needs coordinators. MoE educational psychologists should conduct assessments of individual children with SEND and provide guidance to schools about appropriate programmes. The MoE should establish a national parent partnership service to work with parents of children with SEND to help them access the most appropriate education and other services for their children, as well as offer parent education and support. The above changes will ensure that the education system is as inclusive as possible for pupils with SEND.

 

Nationally equitable  

The implementation of zoning will ensure that all children attend schools in their local communities. So all schools will become neighbourhood community schools. Therefore, students will not need to spend time travelling to secondary school by long bus trips as they will be able to attend the nearest school to their homes. They will be able to put all their energy into their studies at school and will be able to return home with some energy left to do homework, which for many children is not the case at present. Also, children will be able to attend their local primary schools, as there will be no need for parents to drive them to schools that have good reputations for 11 plus results, because transfer to secondary schools will be based on the zones where they live.

Involvement of parents and other family members in the education of their children, both at home and at school, is an essential component of effective education. Having children attend schools in their local communities enables parents to support the school more easily and be more able to attend parent-teacher meetings, be involved in the school’s Parent Teacher Association and engage in other school-based activities. It also facilitates improved pupil behaviour at school since parents can be more easily involved in discipline procedures, such as home-school behaviour programmes.

Greater involvement of people from the community in which schools are based is possible with neighbourhood community schools. Faith leaders and people from the local business community are more likely to associate themselves with local schools and thereby be able to provide support for schools. The involvement of community leaders in schools supports the maintenance of good discipline and provides links to sources of work experience and jobs for school leavers.

Schools’ Boards of Management should therefore include: the principal, teacher representatives, MoE representatives, faith-based and business representatives, alumni representatives, and most importantly, parent representatives elected by parents of children attending the school. This will ensure maximum involvement of the local community in the school and facilitate national equitability of schooling.

 

Globally-competitive 

A report published in May 2020 by CEOWorld magazine, on the world’s best education systems, surveyed 196 300 educators and other stakeholders in education, who rated education systems in 93 counties on the quality of the public education system and related opportunities. Barbados was ranked 79th out of the 93 counties, while Trinidad and Tobago was ranked 58th, the Bahamas 74th and the Dominican Republic 78th.  This indicates the need for urgent education reform in Barbados in order to become more globally-competitive.

 The recent OECD report on creating world class education systems suggests that making the necessary changes to bring about effective education reform has been achieved in many countries in the past 30 years with resulting significant improvements in educational outcomes according to Schleicher. In a report on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted in 69 countries, titled PISA 2015 Results (Volume II): Policies and Practices for Successful Schools concluded at page 46:

PISA results show that more inclusive and fairer school systems are those that provide access to quality early education for all children, offer additional support to struggling students, rather than require them to repeat grades, and delay the age at which students are selected into different programmes or schools. These systems also strive to have excellent schools located in every neighbourhood and ensure that they are accessible to all students, and provide additional support to disadvantaged schools. 

 

Conclusion

Reforming education systems is a challenging and politically difficult task. Such reforms will take considerable effort and resources to implement and there are certain to be teething problems that will need to be worked through. Although some benefits may come quickly, others may not be realised until student populations move into the workforce, where they can make use of their improved education, thereby furthering national economic growth, according to Schleicher. 

Education reforms along the lines of the key values discussed in this article would not only create a much more equitable and inclusive education system, enabling the nation to raise overall academic attainment, while reducing student behavioural problems, it would also bring about the substantial long-term economic benefits that are found to result from producing a better-educated population.

Dr Garry Hornby is a former mainstream and special education teacher and educational psychologist and is now an Emeritus Professor of Education living in Barbados. He can be contacted on:  hornbygarry@gmail.com