How to motivate children

What this shows is that the nation’s primary school teachers are performing at the level expected of educators. The majority of children, including those who would not have gotten their first or second choices of a secondary school, appear to be well-grounded in the basics of a formal education.

This is not to say, however, that the pass rate is satisfactory. Anything under 90 percent at the primary school level must be considered inadequate, and the technocrats at the Education Ministry must know that a lot of work still has to be done. And there is always the question of the nature of the exam itself - does a 51 percent pass mean that the student is ready for secondary school level?

In this regard, the 71 percent pass rate in Language Arts is significant. This is just below the national adult literacy rate, which has been calculated at about 75 percent by the Adult Literacy Tutors and UWI.

That percentage is a far cry from the official literacy rate, which is 98 percent (a statistic based on school enrolment rather than testing). Clearly, the pedagogy in this area needs to be improved, especially since it is likely that most of the children in the failed 29 percent are not “dumb” but have cognitive problems, which may range from hearing difficulties to eye defects, or solvable learning conditions like dyslexia. Nor would it be surprising to discover that the greater proportion of youthful criminals also fall into this group of under-performing students.

The 34 percent failure rate in Math is another cause for concern. Math is not an easy subject to teach, but many new pedagogical techniques have been developed which give children a basic understanding of mathematical concepts — a more effective approach than the rote methods which may teach people to do basic calculations for specific problems yet leave them unable to apply formulas more generally. And, in the modern world, a grasp of mathematics is necessary not only for technology, but also for citizens to understand policy issues, such as the national Budget or inflation rates. Raising the pass rate is therefore a crucial component of development.

In this regard, it seems clear that the Education Ministry should commission a pedagogical analysis of the Presbyterian primary schools. It is these schools which have consistently provided, not only top-scoring students, but also a high percentage of first-rate passes from the general student populace. Do primary school teachers in these schools use different approaches than the teachers in, say, Tobago? Is the disciplinary culture different? How are teachers and children motivated?

If answers can be found to these questions, and applied to other schools, then the bedrock of education in this country would become much more solid.