Acting Chief Education Officer, Dr. Jeffrey Blaize made an appeal to parents to show greater interest in the performance of students at two critical junctures of early childhood education, namely grade two and grade four.
He was addressing the presentation of the Grade Six National Assessment (G6NA) held at the Public Service Union (PSU) Building on Monday.
“You will well imagine and realize that if your child is performing satisfactory or excellent at grades two and four, the likelihood that child performs excellent in grade six is very high,” he said. “Too often we only place emphasis on the exit exams at the primary school and sometimes it’s too late.”
He continued, “So I call on parents to show greater interest in the performance of students at the two critical key stages, at grade two and grade four, so that we can make better use of the results.
Dr. Blaize also called on the educators, our schools more specifically, to ensure that the results of those exams are used for the purposes for which they are intended.
“And that is to identify areas of challenge within the classroom with the students specifically and to put structures in place to mitigate those challenges, so that at the exit of primary school at the grade six level our students will perform much better,” Dr. Blaize stated.
Furthermore, he stated that success doesn’t occur overnight, it is a continuous process.
Dr. Blaize believes that if the support at the homes and at the schools are aligned, “we will get much better results in terms of students’ performance.”
“We have also recognized that literacy, reading, and writing more specifically are key to a successful student’s outcome,” he noted.
He said, in recognition of that, the Ministry of Education has embarked on a series of training sessions for teachers to ensure that they re-strategize, in terms of teaching methods.
Dr. Blaize added that as a system the Ministry of Education has the responsibility to redirect students’ interest in technology.
“One where we can harness their productive capabilities and to make learning exciting for them, because believe it or not technology within the classroom is here to stay,” he noted.
Meanwhile, he called on parents to visit the schools more often.
“Too often we see parents during PTA engagements when they have to receive students’ reports,” he indicated. “If you look at the successful child and you look behind the scenes you will see a parent who communicates with the school, who works closely with the school and that is the formula for success.”
Do they really have to beg the older generation to not let the new generation or retards not remain retarded? Dominicans have to come better than that.I get ignorance is bliss but, on a general basis, I get why people say the place is not a real place now
I applaud the top schools for their excellent performance. I support Dr Blaize when he states, “So I call on parents to show greater interest in the performance of students at the two critical key stages, at grade two and grade four, so that we can make better use of the results.” Although most times its the parents who are slacking off when it comes to helping their children in school, these days I find that the teachers are now slacking off. Their are numerous occasions when the children come home with NO SCHOOL WORK DONE for the day. When asked why is your book empty, the response, “teacher did not come today, or we just went over the homework, we did not do any work.” There are parents who are actively involved in their children education and the school system is failing these children. If you the teacher cannot handle a small class of children, sit at your home and let someone who wants the job, who loves children take up the responsibility cause this our children future.
When will the Ministry of Education realise that at least 50% of children are creatively, rather than academically inclined. And that dyslexia can run as high as 20%. Exams cannot effectively measure creativity. And a dyslexic student learns altogether differently.
But either way, children should not be groomed for exams at the tender ages of nine and ten. That to my mind amounts to child abuse.
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