Newly appointed Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator Ruel Reid says he will take a more clinical approach to continuing the transformation of the education sector, with focus on what he described as the fundamental gaps within the system.
“In addition to parenting, one of the issues that I am tackling frontally that ties into a continuation of the transformational programme... [is] special education, and in special education a quantifying of the extent of special needs that exists, because I believe we have as high as 70 per cent [of students],” Reid told the Jamaica Observer last Thursday.
“I have asked my team to go and do the research so I can get the correct data on my thesis, that we have far more students in our system with special needs than we want to admit,” he continued.
One day after being sworn in Reid announced that his focus would be on strengthening parenting skills at the foundational level to ensure students are completely ready for the system. He argued that the lack of proper parenting can also be responsible for poor performance in children.
“The parenting I speak of is how do we create the environment that is producing healthy children with healthy minds, so that when we get them in the system they are ready to learn. To the extent that they are not doing very well, it’s not all about the poor quality of teaching, it must be larger. because based on our socio-economic construct, [it is clear] that we aren’t producing enough healthy children with healthy brains. They are being contaminated by environmental and other socio-economic variables — unhealthy environment, unhealthy practices,” he noted.
“We have to make sure they have proper housing and all the support and both parents are involved in their lives right until they become adults,” he added.
The minister noted that, “we have an unfortunate culture of taking our kids to school and thinking the school is like a hospital that will solve all problems, when, in fact, the school is really a support to enable and empower students, because parents are the first teachers.”
Additionally, the minister said that his team will look to reform the testing systems, making reference to the recently concluded Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT).
“The previous JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) administration started the process, and full credit to Honourable Ronnie Thwaites who at the time continued it, and we are hoping to roll that out in 2018/19 pretty much,” he stated.
He told the Sunday Observer that the GSAT reform will better prepare the students for transitioning to the secondary level.
“How the test is constructed [now], the items are largely multiple choice, so really it is not empowering the students with the skill sets — critical thinking skills, the skills of writing and expression — that they need for the secondary system, so we inherit the problem in Grade 7 and beyond,” he said.
“So part of the reform will assist in resolving; that will force the system to identify the problem earlier and before they transition we try and fix it,” he continued.
Reid also stated that he would like to adopt an aspect of the Finnish education model — to guarantee that every child gets an education until age 18 — an idea he said was purported by Andrew Holness when he was minister of education.
“[Now] majority of the kids leave the system at Grade 11 without any acceptable level of certification and when you look at the task force report, they have not provided a prescription to solve that problem,” he noted.
“We want an all-inclusive system that takes every child into a programme between Grade 11 and Grade 13 so they can find themselves with a blend of opportunities of both the traditional CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate) as well as technical. And so they can go to the traditional sixth form or they can go to Heart and do a combination of CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations) and the technical subjects so that by age 18, as is happening in Finland, they have levels of certification that allows them to transition in any area,” he added.
The minister stated that with this approach in Finland, students have the option to go to either university or use the acquired certification to go into the working world.
Asked how the administration will fund the changes, he said the resources were already in place to accommodate the transition.
“What I am looking at are the opportunities in and outside of the regular high school system in terms of capacity, so we are going to have different modalities because you have an average of about 40,000/44,000 kids in each of the grade levels. So I only need really at most the upper level, about 90,000 more places, but we already have a number of those students already in sixth form programmes [or] community colleges,” he reasoned.
“So we are talking about using the capacity that HEART/NTA has, which is enough space to absorb these persons. There are several other programmes that are all around the place, including what we call the CAP programme, and beyond that you would also have the Apprenticeship programme which is going to come in place and that would also leave where you can have a work-based programme because apprenticeship means you are putting some of your students into the world of work so they will get their practical training and they can get their theory in the evening so the same school that operate in the day you can use them in the evening as schools as well,” he explained.
The minister said that he would be involved in discussion with stakeholders throughout the sector in working to achieve the objectives outlined.
Source: Jamaica Observer