Director of Education Claire Browne has reaffirmed the commitment to working with stakeholders to enhance Grade Six Mathematics performance at the National Assessment level. Browne acknowledged ongoing efforts, noting that improvements will take time.
“We are on the right trajectory and must stay committed without expecting quick fixes,” Browne emphasized.
This year’s pass rate for Mathematics was 59%, with 68% of students scoring above the 50% pass mark. Browne praised educators, students, and support systems for their efforts to increase interest in math.
“We’ve conducted extensive consultations and capacity-building initiatives, including support from the University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus, to strengthen our math teachers’ skills,” Browne added.
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
It’s not the math teachers’ skills that need improvement but the behaviours of the students and their parents. The students are very undisciplined and this reflects on their homes. All parents in Antigua and Barbuda who have children in primary schools who are consistently performing poorly and being disruptive should be required to attend a parenting seminar before they can register their children for the new school year. I don’t hold most of these children accountable but their parents. The children are left to raise themselves and many spend hours on their devices. Unless the parents are held responsible for their childrens’ education, nothing will change.
Here are a few more recommendations for the new school year, if anyone in the MOE sees this.
1. Abolish the grade 6 national assessments. It’s just too much pressure on the children for their entire years in primary school to come down to one exam. I have heard of some of our children having anxiety and panic attacks. What in the world are we coming to when this much pressure is placed on such young ones to perform for a single grade and then measure their worth/value by this one test score?
2. Abolish SBA’s. The parents are left to do the work anyways because most of the students don’t understand what is required because, by the time they give the SBA’s, many of the concepts are still not taught to students for them to be ready to do them. When I attended primary school many, many years ago, I didn’t have SBA’s to do, and it didn’t affect my education negatively. I ended up with a quality university degree with honors in my field of study. SBA’s are just more work, and there is more evidence against their benefit than for it. It’s just not helping. Those in authority need to humble themselves, admit it’s not helping students, and DROP it now!
3. MOE needs to adopt the model they used during the pandemic in 2020, when they didn’t have national exams but instead used the grades from the schools. I believe students and parents will be more responsible, it will be a better reflection on the students’ abilities, and less pressure will be placed on them.
4. If the MOE wants to continue to assess students’s performances through exams, perhaps they can set exams to take place at the end of each term instead of just one and take the scores for the three terms.
5. STOP blaming teachers and take responsibility, MOE. The failure is directly related to your policies and decisions, which are terrorizing students around national exam time in Antigua and Barbuda.
6. Many of the exams are just too long! The students are burned out. Set shorter tests if you insist on continuing the national exams.
The math exams are too long and the students don’t have enough time to complete them properly. Besides, for the math exams, the students need to master every concept taught throughout the entire primary school years. Whereas for the science and social students they are given a few topics to concentrate on and still the science and social studies grades are still not that great. Also, perhaps it’s time for the MOE to look at abolishing the grade 6 exams and SBA’s and take the grades from the schools. If they want to set the end term exams in the schools for the grade 6 students then that will be fine. However, don’t just have a single grade 6 exam. This is where much of the problem lies.
What the Govenment needs to do is rectify the ganja situation pon island, its has gone totally out of control and cutie again aint doing shit.
The teachers doing a fine job, they are not the problem, any dunb ass can see that.
Fix the ganja issue and create more jobs for the youths.
Comments are closed.