Education analysis extended to schools

Education Minister, Petter Saint Jean
Education Minister, Petter Saint Jean

Education Minister Petter Saint Jean says that this year, the Ministry of Education has extended its analysis to include not only the top performing students, but top performing schools and most improved schools.

He made his comments as he addressed the media during the release of the 2013 GSAT exam results.

“The Roseau Primary School tops the list of Most Improved Schools and this is a perfect example of how a school faced with many challenges can realize success with the right combination of sound management policies and a winning attitude from teachers, students and parents,” he said. “As a Ministry, we will continue working with our other primary schools who have not met with the same level of success in this year’s exam to bring them up to the high standards we have set for all schools in Dominica.”

He stated that with this year’s results, a disparity in the performances of boys and girls was noticed and this continues to be extremely worrying as “our goal is to give our males the same opportunities for academic success as are available to our girls.”

“We must find ways, as an education system, as a nation, to narrow the gap between the performance levels of boys and girls,” he stated. “As we move forward, an intervention program is necessary to identify the challenges that our boys face, provide high quality teaching to address their difficulties and give effective support at the Ministry level as early as possible in areas of curriculum, assessment, leadership and management.”

He said the ministry must “address urgently, the teaching and learning of Maths and English and improve our boys’ attitudes to and confidence in reading and writing.”

Saint Jean said his ministry is “encouraged by the general positive trends we have noticed from this year’s results.”

“The results have revealed that we are on par with our regional testing body as the results of the G6NA also show that there is a strong correlation with the results of the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) piloted this year in five primary schools,” he remarked. “It means that we are doing something right in Dominica and that our methods of assessment are comparable to established regional standards.”

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11 Comments

  1. Morihei Ueshiba
    June 27, 2013

    Saint Jean u was not invited to the wedding :lol: :lol: :lol:

    • .
      June 27, 2013

      morihei, grow up. u r on every topic, just talking rubbish. what does wedding have 2 do with school. u 2 like noticing

  2. Teacher
    June 26, 2013

    i take particular offense to being told that i am not doing enough for the boys in our classrooms. The way some people get on, you would swear teachers are deliberately undermining the boys.
    Well let me tell you. Most of our boys do not like the idea of the book and pencil. On boy once told me, “miss, what i need to read for. Fish i going n fish, and i still going to make more money than you.” Of course i had to explain somethings to him, but think about all the boys who want to fish, become mechanics, carpenters, masons,are we catering to them?
    We have it ingrained in us that book smart is the only kind of smart.well the boys we cannot reach are the ones who need the technical training that we did away with because “every child must learn.”
    And we all assume that they should learn the same thing.
    Well, I say starting at primary school, bring back woodwork, plumbing, electricity, all of these skills and watch our boys bounce back.
    I remember when I went to school, boys from our school had to walk to the neighbouring village to do their skills. Today most of them are jack of all trades master of none. But they can hold their own. And nobody complained about failing the boys then.

    • Female
      June 27, 2013

      Precisley my point! Our educational system as it is does not understand our boys -from having all those female teachers in the class to the cirricullum that screams book knowledge!And the reponse you got from that male student is a reflection of the home!

      I maiantain that we have failed our boys.

      Thank you!

    • pen and paper
      June 27, 2013

      I am a teacher and even at grade K level the boys are not interested though most of them have the potential to do well. I think if the parents give them the right support they would come through. You see a huge difference when they are monitoring and helping their boys. Hats off to those who are pushing their boys all the way up the hill. It will pay off and they will be grateful to their parents.

  3. way!!!
    June 26, 2013

    smh, who are the people doing the thinking in workplaces? Bonje oye, every corner and crevis of schools should be included in all educational analysis. Only this year? sa pa ka feh sanse! NO wonder a lot of schools staying behind so

  4. Female
    June 26, 2013

    “He stated that with this year’s results, a disparity in the performances of boys and girls was noticed and this continues to be extremely worrying as “our goal is to give our males the same opportunities for academic success as are available to our girls.””

    I personally think that boys are more intelligent than girls but our educational system does not understand them. I also believe that in some subtle ways our boys are undermined in clubs and churches etc. and they are not given fair chances to prove themselves. Case in point, I was helping to prepare a group of young people for a church program and I suggested a boy for a particular part that required reading, the leader who was a female responded, “Those boys cannot read let us choose a girl instead”. I looked around at the cadre of youth we were working with -they all go to school and have participated in similar programs before, so there was no reason for her comment. My heart sank. The worrying thing is that this leader herself is raising a boy.

    Added to that, we do not have enough male mentors in the classroom. We have accepted the fact that the school’s responsibility is to nurture. Whilst our schools must be child-friendly, the bulk of nurturing should be done at home. And there again we see our parents expecting the schools to do there job. So the schools must “feed” the children with knowledge, discipline them and still nurture them and it is no wonder that some parents think that a secondary school will determine the outcome of their child/children.

    Now as a result of we thinking that teachers must nurture children more females(females are gifted nuturers it is said) are in the classrooms, leaving our boys misunderstood and without enough mentorship in schools.

    If the home and moreso fathers would take up their responsibilities and be their for the boys then we would see a difference.

    • Anonymous
      June 28, 2013

      @female, the boys are not being underminded they take a back seat so the girls have no choice but to prance over them. Blame it on the bad parenting. Do you remember the days when your brothers could go outside, play all day, stay out late while you as a girl had to stay indoors and study or read a book? Do you remember you had to cook and wash then read but your brothers had to go fish, garden, weed, make furniture? Well this is the end result. It does not matter how skilful boys are every child needs to learn to read and write. The way technology is ruling the world, your skill alone cannot make you successful, you have to know basic maths and english or you will surely stay behind. Stop the excuses and get the boys to read and write.

  5. Nkrumah Kwame
    June 26, 2013

    “The results have revealed that we are on par with our regional testing body as the results of the G6NA also show that there is a strong correlation with the results of CPEA …”Then WHY are we still planning to give the responsibility of our G6NA to the regional testing body, CXC?

    • yea
      June 26, 2013

      who says they are planning to do so? tsk tsk… Simply amazing the things we eject from our mouths in the absence of any information.

      • Affection8
        June 26, 2013

        wait and you will see. what u know.

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