Performance can be improved

IT is hoped that within four to five years, more of the children sitting the Mathematics component of the 11-Plus Examination will score between 50 and 100.

 

Education, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Ronald Jones, says he is optimistic about this goal becoming a reality, adding that steps are already being taken within his Ministry and at the levels of the schools to bring it to fruition. His comments came as he indicated to the media that he is not satisfied with some of the results seen in this year’s Mathematics paper.

 

“Mathematics has been a challenge; it has been fluctuating, so that this year itself the movement was about a four per cent drop. And people have argued that it was a bit tough, that that paper this year was a bit tough, but I just don’t want to say it was tough. I am going to sit down, we’re going to look at what happened over the years, see what it is that happened that impacted on a lot of children so that the average mark, or the mean actually dropped,” he said.

 

With that in mind, Minister Jones indicated that he has also been trying to source assessments for children in different parts of the world within that same age group to compare with those done locally. This, he explained, will allow the Ministry to determine if in fact they are creating a very difficult mathematics paper or assessment for the students. His comments came as he indicated that one of the challenges facing them is that some students have difficulty solving maths problems. 

 

“They can do mechanical problems; from the time you wrap them with language in a problematic framework, some children don’t understand that. If you take away the language, they could get it right,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, referring to what he termed as “the silly, meaningless debate” about the performance of private schools versus public schools, he maintained it had no basis. Contending also that too much focus has been placed on students achieving the top places in examinations, he said the focus must be shifted in the classrooms to children reaching a particular percentage and above.

 

“…That we say in our classrooms I want to see percentages 80 and above, or 70 and above, or 60 and above and once all my children scored 60 and above, every one of my children have met the mark and have been successful, and I applaud every single boy and girl,” he said.

 

He then went on to suggest that even though some students may not perform well on the Common Entrance exam, it does not determine their future academic performance.

 

“I’ve seen children who entered school with 35 marks as a raw score… at the end of five years or six years they leave school with six or seven subjects Grade 1 or Grade 2,” he said. (JRT)