del
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Post by del on Jun 8, 2010 18:43:39 GMT -5
Universal Secondary Education was introduced in our education system in an effort to ensure that all students received secondary education.
Do you think the students are really benefiting from USE? What are some of the challenges that the teachers face? What are some possible solutions for the problems that the teachers face?
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Post by millie on Jun 8, 2010 20:22:59 GMT -5
Some students are benefiting from the universal secondary education. These are my reasons. 1. Some students who are late bloomers can become succesful if they are given the opportunity.
2. Some students who did not perform well on the exam because of fear, stress, or sickness, and can get a second chance to redeem themselves.
On the other hand some students just do not have the pre resquisit to move on to a higher level, as a result they will become frustrated and will eventually give up. Students in that bracket will not benefit from universal secondary education if it remains the way it is today.
One of the challenges that teachers face is not being adiquately trained to teach these students.
The ministry of education should organise workshops in order to give teachers new strategies to help students gain the pre resquites needed to move on. Also there should be grater emphasis on content area literacy for all teachers. Some students just do not have what it takes to become academatically successful. Therefore the government should have more technical and vocational subjects to cater to the needs of these students.
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Post by blanch on Jun 8, 2010 21:07:26 GMT -5
1. One of the benefits is that all students are guaranteed a space at a secondary school. No child is left out.
2. Overcrowding especially at schools where the students performed poorly at the entrance exams. It is difficult for the teachers to meet the different academic needs of a class which consists of primarily struggling learners.
3. The ministry will not support this solution. However, there is a great need to reduce on the number of students per class. As Millie stated, apart form smaller classes training teachers to meet come of their students needs is required.
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sara
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Post by sara on Jun 8, 2010 22:46:58 GMT -5
The introduction of USE has provided advantages and disadvantages to the students. However, before I further expand of this, the ministry of education I believe should have had workshop or other programmes put in place so that the secondary teachers would be equipped with the necessary skills and strategies that they would need to help the students cope with secondary life. USE has provided techinal students with the opportunity to be exposed to various technical subjects which they can succeed on. USE has allowed as one member clearly stated slower students to catch up at the later levels,
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sben
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Post by sben on Jun 9, 2010 6:29:43 GMT -5
I think with the idea of introducing universal Secondary Education in St. Lucia today has benefitted majority of children as Millie said that some students as of result one thing or other who perform poorly have another chance to be in there instead of leaving them in the same primary school. Yes it is of great advantage according to the former US President, Bush says in his article called NO CHILD LEFT BEHIDE that he will try as much as possibe to ensure that each and every child get the proper education that he/she needed in life.
according to what some of my classmate said ,Ministry of Education need to put something in place for the teachers who will be teaching these students so that they will be equip and ready to met the battle ahead.
As for me I think that some of the challenges teachers might be facing may be that they might not have enough materials to teach those students. Again, the teachers might not be well qaulified to teach to met the needs of the students.
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Post by Angelina Polius on Jun 9, 2010 6:48:41 GMT -5
Well done Del for creating a new thread . I find the comments made by participants are thoughtful and valid. I just wanted to add that while the initiative is one with good intentions, I do not think that it is meeting the diverse needs of students. Of course, there are students who bloom later in their academic life like Millie stated, but very often schools which receive students with extremely low grades tend to get the most bitter piece of the pie. They experience the greatest challenge in adjusting instruction in response to the needs and interest of their subjects. Most of the times, the teachers are not strategic., they are not equipped with the strategies to tailor instruction to make learning more interesting and meaningful to their students. And believe it or not, these are the teachers who most times claim that their job is to teach Science, Math, History etc and not reading and writing. What do you think?
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phia
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Post by phia on Jun 9, 2010 17:43:09 GMT -5
:I have to agree with Millie about some of the students getting a second chance but what about those who just can't do it. They are the ones who most of the time drop out. The teachers too become frustrated and will still blaming the teachers at the primary schools. They truly are the ones who tell themselves that it is not their job to teach reading and writing. I think that these teacher are failing the students, not deliberately but because they do not know how to approach it.
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Post by joejoe on Jun 9, 2010 18:27:16 GMT -5
yes the students benefit in some way..but i see it as doing more harm than good
*the teachers have to deal with students who are not ready for secondary level education...who basically have not risen above the emergent stage if reading, and this can be frustrating and time consuming.
*one solution can be that there be a pre- form one where students be given simple literacy...as to how to deal with the higher grades.
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jean
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Post by jean on Jun 9, 2010 18:48:37 GMT -5
Although USE does benefit some students, too many students are being disadvantaged. The students who scored low on the exam because they were not prepared for that level of work, are placed in secondary schools and expected to do the same kind and level of work as the students from the other schools.
Millie made the point about late bloomers but how succesful can they really be if the teachers are not equipped and trained to teach them, to bring them up to the level they need to be?
As stated before by others, teachers need to be trained to effectivey meet the needs of the students and if possible, classes should be made smaller. Especially in the schools with students who are slower. Otherwise, studentss and teachers will contiinue to be disadvantaged.
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tasha
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Post by tasha on Jun 9, 2010 19:42:07 GMT -5
While reading a press release on the announcement of Universal Secondary Education, I found out that there were plans whereby the project (USE) will include: a new system of continuous assessment at primary level that will ensure that students are promoted to secondary level when they are academically ready, the provision of support services to secondary students (counselling and other welfare support); the provision of literacy and numeracy support programmes to primary and secondary students; and the establishment of school development plans. Dr. Anthony, the prime minister at the time, described these developments as a new chapter in the history of education in Saint Lucia. He indicated “The attainment of universal secondary education is a milestone that signals that a country has reached a particular threshold in its human resource development and its capacity to develop itself.” Somehow, I believe that the USE project would have been a successful one IF it was enacted as planned.
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macj
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Post by macj on Jun 9, 2010 21:48:21 GMT -5
Well I believe that the best move when implementing the universal secondary education would have been to have a collaboration with a body of experienced teachers. That would bring out the pros and cons of the project and make it better: teachers would at least be prepared. I also believe that with the level of content area and reading literacy in St. Lucia, which most of us know is poor for many of the students, the years of the secondary schooling would need to be increased.
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Post by Coya on Jun 9, 2010 22:36:49 GMT -5
I totally agree with sarah......USE has taken place but at the end of the day it doesn't benefit the students much because the teachers teach for an exam and the have tasks to accomplish so they follow the syllabus and forget that they should be teaching the students but i don't blame them to the full extent because of the amount of pressure placed on them to achieve the goal that the school has set or that the ministry it self has set. They need to take into consideration that all students at secondary level are not at the same literacy level so all of them do not pick up concepts as quickly and all of them will never perform at the same levels or even close. How are u expecting a student who got 16% in an exam to get to secondary school to spend 5 years at secondary school and write the same exam to perform just as well as a student who got 68% in that same exam when the teachers are not properly equipped to tech that student and they teach all students to write same exam exam in the end which is CXC. The reality is that at secondary school the teachers don't get the opportunity that they need to teach the students but rather they are given a time line to teach the syllabus and to teach for the final exam.
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cyan
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Post by cyan on Jun 10, 2010 5:03:32 GMT -5
I would like to agree with my fellow colleagues when they proclaim that USE is benefical in that; all students are given a chance at a secondary school. However, the question, 'At what cost?', still lingers in the air.
In my mind, USE has proved to more disadvantageous than advantageous:
* Struggling students are unequipped with the necessary skills and strategies to become independent learners and as a result, these struggling students become extremely dependent on the teacher, and this may further result in frustration for both the teacher and students.
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cyan
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Post by cyan on Jun 10, 2010 5:16:59 GMT -5
Furthermore, I would like to agree with Ms Polius. The teachers who focus on teaching the 'subject' and not the 'students' fail the students consiberably. On the contrary, I will not blame them completely, since they themselves need to be trained to teach reading and writing.
Hence, I strongly believe that, the ministry of education should put structures in place (e.g. professional development programmes or workshops) to train teachers to teach literacy, in order to meet the needs of their students.
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Post by Angelina Polius on Jun 10, 2010 5:34:07 GMT -5
I am impressed with the caliber of comments that all of you have made on this topic. Bravo!!! Reference is made to students being academically ready for USE in Tasha's comments and joejoe suggested a pre-form one class to equip students with the literacy skills that are needed for their success in the higher forms. These are all useful ideas that can be explored. Well done, bright sparks
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