Education transformation stillborn

Esther Tyson, ContributorThe reports prepared by the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) are published on the Ministry of Education's website. Currently, only reports of those schools inspected in 2010 have been published. These reports are very informative and give an overview of what is happening in the schools inspected.Twenty-three of these reports are on primary and all-age schools. Of the 23, only one school's performance was ranked 'good'; nine were 'satisfactory'; and 13 were unsatisfactory.The NEI has five levels of judgements: Level 1 - failing, quality is low; Level 2 - unsatisfactory, quality not yet at the level acceptable for school in Jamaica; Level 3 - satisfactory, the minimum level of acceptability required for Jamaica; Level 4 - good, the expected level for every school in Jamaica; Level 5 - exceptionally high quality of performance or provision.If out of 23 schools catering to primary education - some situated in rural St Andrew and Portland, others in inner-city communities and two in Harbour View, St Andrew - only one is considered to be performing at the expected level for every school in Jamaica, it begs the question of what is being done to bring the other 22 schools up to the level of 'good'.It was heartening to see the school that was deemed good. It was Shirley Castle Primary School in rural Portland. It is a small school with 36 students and three teachers. The size is not the only factor for its success, since there is a school that is performing below par with 18 students and three teachers.Common threadAn analysis of the summary of the judgements on the unsatisfactory and even some satisfactory schools reflects common features. One such is the teachers' knowledge of the subject and how best to teach the students. In quite a few instances, even where it is determined that the teachers' knowledge of the subject is satisfactory, the teachers' knowledge of how best to help the students to learn is lacking. This is particularly disturbing since in many instances these schools have a small pupil-teacher ratio. What is seen is that many teachers do not know how to stimulate the students to learn. Their use of appropriate methodology is lacking.Look at some excerpts from these reports:"While teachers have satisfactory subject knowledge, many lack a clear understanding as to how students learn best. Teaching lacks variety and innovation and seldom takes into account the needs of students with differing levels of ability.""The quality of teaching is inconsistent across the school. Although most lessons are satisfactory, there are too many failing lessons and too few lessons where teachers use a range of effective teaching strategies. Teachers lack a clear understanding of how children learn and rarely use creative teaching methods to enrich students' learning experiences.""The quality of teaching is unsatisfactory across the school, with too many lessons deemed as failing. There is a considerable lack of understanding among teachers about how students learn. Teaching methods lack variety and attention to the differences in levels of ability among students. In some lessons, poor planning, unclear objectives and inaccurate teaching methods undermine student progress.""Teaching and learning are unsatisfactory. Most lessons rely on a narrow range of activities, with too much teacher talk and too little focus on how students' thinking can be developed. Few resources are used beyond the blackboard, Ministry of Education textbooks, and student notebooks."A common thread running through the reports is that where schools have multi-grade classes, teachers display a lack of knowledge on how to teach in this context. The following comments reflect this."Teaching and learning (are) unsatisfactory, and many teachers have insufficient knowledge of how best to provide for the needs of the different abilities and grade levels in one class. Questioning techniques are frequently too narrow to develop the students' own thinking.""Teaching provides unsatisfactory support for students' learning throughout the school. Although there are pockets of good teaching, most teachers employ ineffective teaching methods which fail to challenge the needs of all their students, both the high achievers and those students who have learning difficulties. This is especially obvious in multi-grade classes where teachers fail to differentiate between these two groups in lessons, both in the teaching of the planned activities and what is expected of students; this particularly limits the progress of the upper grade-level students and the high achievers. Teachers are qualified but lack the skill to successfully make an impact on the learning of all their students."Improve faltering systemTeaching is at the core of the education process. If there is a consistent problem with the teaching methodology that seems to be affecting students' learning outcomes, the Ministry of Education needs to fast-track the plan to have education territorial officers who are specialists in their subject areas assigned to schools that need assistance. It is ill-advised to spend millions of dollars establishing the NEI without putting in place the support structures needed to improve the faltering system that now exists.The Transformation in Education Report was done from 2004. It is now 2012. That means that we have had almost two generations of students going from primary to high school in this system, which in many places operates schools as simply a holding area for children whose parents are at work or who need a break.Transformation has become a stillbirth. The work being done in early childhood is commendable, but it is not enough. This system needs serious surgery for the needed improvement to take place.The other organisations involved in the training of teachers need to do a detailed assessment of the reports coming out of the NEI to see the context for which they are preparing teachers to operate within. In this case, the colleges need to address the whole matter of teaching student-teachers' appropriate methodology for the Jamaican classroom in this 21st century.I will be looking further at other factors that are impacting the performance of our schools in other articles.Esther Tyson is an educator. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and esther.tyson@gmail.com.