| A possible review of the subject areas of Social Studies and Science at the primary level is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Education.According to Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, this development is premised on the comments that were forthcoming during consultations the Ministry held countrywide with stakeholders during the past year.Minister of Education, Priya ManickchandManickchand, who was at the time speaking at her final press conference for 2013, said that the Education Ministry has adopted a strategy to continually meet stakeholders in the field.“I’m out at least three times a week, but not at the same time with the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), so I would give us a nine out of 10 for being with the people, for going out and assessing what happens. It is a feature of the Ministry that I am very pleased with,” boasted Manickchand.She disclosed that from the discussions that were held across the country “what we found out is that people – teachers, parents and students too – believe that we should have a second look at our curriculum for Social Studies and Science because they might be going too deep”.“Do children at Grade Four really need to know exactly how Parliament is made up and which seats go to where? Do they really need to know the great details of the eyes and the heart at Grade Four and Five?” questioned the Minister as she disclosed that the Ministry is closely examining such concerns.Although a likely review of the Social Studies and Science curriculum could become a reality, the Minister insisted that the intent is to ensure that “we do not take away from our curriculum what other children in the Caribbean are learning in theirs, while at the same time meeting the needs of age-appropriate learning in the classroom”.Nevertheless, Manickchand noted that the past year presented the Ministry with great opportunities to measure its progress by looking at the academic performances of children at the levels of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). And according to her, “the results are very encouraging; we are doing, at every single level, better than we have ever done as a country. We might have one or two exceptions, but even where there was an exception, that might have been a percentage lower than last year (2012)”.“We are without a doubt at the best place we have ever been regarding pass rates academically at Maths, English, Social Studies, Science and the other academic courses.”Manickchand was keen on announcing, too, that the Education Ministry is also incredibly pleased that, having stabilised some results during the past year, it managed to introduce extracurricular activities as well.This strategic move, which entailed the introduction of steel pan at some schools, has in fact proven to be instrumental in fostering change in the lives of those so exposed. Those involved in this venture, the Minister said, were those “we thought needed some more stability”.Moreover, students,Cheap Stitched MLB Jerseys, under the supervision of teachers, and armed with their steel pan playing skills, were during the Christmas holidays tasked with entertaining shoppers and other citizens at various points in the city who were willing to lend them an ear.Added to this, Manickchand said that the Ministry was able to introduce plans to strengthen the debating capacity of students.“We have a duty not only to teach children how to write an exam and the contents that would be in those, but also how to think critically and present those views sensibly in public…and so we have embarked on doing much more strengthening of our access in the schools to extracurricular activities that are not necessarily needed in our academic curriculum.” |
