Scholar with Guyanese roots talks about education – says if CPCE entrance standard is raised, end-product quality would be greatly enhanced
Although the previous administration had recognised the importance of education in nation-building, as was evident in the sector receiving the largest slice of the budgetary pie every year, performance had not been commensurate with the investments made.
Under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration, the education sector received about 15% of the National Budget practically every year. In 2009, the sum allocated to education was $20.4 billion; in 2010 it was $21.4 billion; in 2011 it was 24.3 billion; in 2012 it was $26.5 billion; in 2013 it was $28 billion; and in 2014 it was $32 billion.
The heavy investment has seen a remarkable improvement in educational infrastructure from the state things were in about two decades ago. Access to education has improved significantly, as have students’ performance at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.
But with the huge investments, a portion of which goes towards teachers’ training, there is a natural expectation that students should be performing far better than currently obtains at school today.
It is interesting to note that, in 2009, students’ pass rate counting grades 1 to 3 was 63.7%; in 2010 it increased to 66.2 per cent; and in 2011, it declined slightly to 64 per cent. In 2012 it slipped to 58. 6%; in 2013, it inched to 59.3%; while in 2014 it increased minimally to 60.2%.
In the last three years, the achievement can be best described as horizontal progress, as it was below the lowest national pass rate obtained in the previous three years. Undoubtedly too, the results did not reflect value for money, given that there was an increase in spending on education in the past three years.
QUALITY TEACHERS
Dr Travis Bristol, Research and Policy Fellow at Stanford University, who has worked in Guyana through the World Bank, said improvement in students’ performance hinges on sound management and the quality of teachers in the school system.
Some of the shortcomings in the school system, he said, can be addressed at the level of the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), which should function as a centre for excellence.
Dr Bristol told the Guyana Chronicle it is important that those aspiring to become teachers have a love for the profession. He pointed out that applicants to college should say why wanting to teach would be a good idea. And their application, he said, should ideally include an interview component.
Dr Bristol was born of Guyanese parents in Brooklyn, New York. He has taught pre-service English teachers in Boston, USA, and has also taught for five years in New York City public schools. A distinguished scholar, Dr Bristol was, in 2013, awarded the Vice-President’s Grant for Student Research in Diversity and the Provost Doctoral Dissertation Grant from Teachers College; the Minority Dissertation Fellowship from the American Educational Research Association, a Ford Dissertation Fellowship from the National Research Council of the National Academies, and the Spencer Dissertation Fellowship from the National Academy of Education.
Dr Bristol holds a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College; a Masters of Arts in the Teaching of English from Stanford University; and, in 2014, he completed his PhD in Educational Policy at Columbia University.
“If you raise the standard of those entering the Cyril Potter College of Education, you begin to raise the quality of those who leave,” he told this publication in an interview on Facebook.
REINVEST
Dr Bristol also emphasises the need to reinvest in teacher training. “We can’t expect teachers to teach in ‘student-centred’ ways if their teacher-training is not delivered in those ways. Teacher-trainers need ongoing training themselves. At CPCE, there could be more of a sense of what are some practices (folks in the US use the term ‘core practices’) that all teachers should have when they leave.
“Identifying one or two practice would require the lecturers at CPCE to come together to, of course, learn those practice themselves. Given that so much teaching is done via ‘chalk and talk’, an interactive lecture and group discussion might be two core practices,” he said.
Improving teachers’ pay, he noted, also goes a far way in motivating teachers to deliver of their best.
The young educator has had several stints working in Guyana. During the summer of 2010, he worked on a number of projects here. The first was with Tej Girwar and Samantha Williams, both young education officers on a Male Teacher Recruitment Campaign titled “Be a Man, Teach Guyana”. The project was vigorously pushed by then Education Minister Shaik Baksh, as it was felt that there was a need for more male role models in the school system, but it fell through after he was not reappointed to the Ministry following the 2011 General and Regional Elections.
CURRICULUM DEVELOPED
Dr Bristol also developed a curriculum for in-service teachers on how to increase learning for boys.
“I also studied the distance learning centres and made some recommendations on how CPCE might improve them,” he said. “On that project, I had the opportunity to visit several distance learning centres in Berbice, and Moruca (in) Region One. The recommendations to the CPCE Principal include: Create clear and transparent requirements for becoming a tutor, and gathering and utilising of distance education tutors and students’ data must be done in a systematised manner to improve the quality of the distance education teacher education programme.”
It is not clear if these recommendations were implemented. But, in January 2011, Dr Bristol returned and taught the course designed to increase learning for boys to a group of secondary school teachers from Regions 3 and 4 at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD).
In March of 2011, he returned and worked with senior education officers and helped them design courses for the Continuous Professional Development Programme at CPCE.
During August of that year, Dr Bristol also delivered the course on teaching boys to a group of teachers from all across the country, with the exception of Region 9.
And from December 2013 to May 2014, he worked on the 2014 – 2019 Education Sector Plan. One of the main recommendations in the plan is that the Ministry of Education places focus on improving the skills of teachers and head-teachers.
WILLING
Dr Bristol told this publication that he is always willing to be a partner in the process of building the local education sector, and would love to continue working in the country to support the Ministry of Education and the Cyril Potter College of Education.
“The country must continue to invest in education. One way it should do this is to increase teachers’ salary. One part of the Education Sector Plan calls for focusing on sub-groups of students who underperform. So we know that boys underperform more than girls. So the Ministry of Education must develop an action plan for supporting boys more than girls, or for creating better support for boys,” he said.
The scholar also pointed out that while it is not included in the current Education Strategic Plan, attention should be placed on how different racial/ethnic groups perform at the national and regional examinations. This, Dr Bristol said, would allow policy-makers to make better, more informed and targeted decisions to ensure even opportunities for all to perform optimally at these examinations, thereby silencing any cry of discrimination.
But, he noted, in all of this, “teachers are education’s natural resources.” He pointed out that, in Guyana, there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done with teachers and with those supporting and training teachers.
Dr Bristol is married to Tolani Britton, who is also of Guyanese descent. Both of his parents are from Nabaclis, East Coast Demerara. His uncle, Kenneth Bristol, was a national boxing champion who represented Guyana at the Pan-American Games. Dr Bristol’s grandfather died in May 2014.
“My grandfather had the equivalent of a 6th grade education. He did not have the kinds of opportunities I have. And one of the reasons I do the work I do in Guyana is because I do not want that for any child.
“My grandfather was brilliant, but because he was poor and lived in the country, he did not have the same kind of access as other children,” Dr Bristol said.
