By Howard Campbell, Contributor Recently, the Cambridge Examination Syndicate started a public relations campaign in this country by publishing "world" rankings in its A-Level examination. This is misleading us into thinking that our education system is performing well. We need only to look at the CXC passes in English and Mathematics to understand the extent of the under-performance generally. In addition, a number of students are not allowed to sit the examination as their schools would have pre-judged that they would not pass. So the problem must lie in our education system, which produces a few persons who can perform well at examinations. Many of these are brilliant at reproducing knowledge that they have imbibed, but nevertheless, have not been nurtured to think and act independently. This results partly from our obsession with examinations and the award of scholarships.
George John, Veteran Journ-alist The Trinidad & Tobago Express November 11, 2004
FROM ALL indications Jamaica is definitely not alone as it relates to having an education system that consistently fails to deliver at the desired standards. Whilst we may be experiencing these problems to a greater degree than our regional counterparts, the fact is, we are not alone. Whilst sobering, Jamaica's continued national development is greatly dependent on our ability to solve the Mathematics problem (no pun intended) facing our nationals. Until we improve the analytical, problem-solving and inquiry skills of our students, Jamaica's hope of moving from developing to "developed country by 2017" may be nothing more than a pipe dream.
HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?
The problem is really much bigger than simply getting most of our teens in high school to pass an examination at the CXC level. It is more along the lines that we have failed to engender a culture where the vast majority of our literate population is comfortable with Mathematics, to the point that problem-solving is second nature. I and others look forward to the day when, as a country, we will have an overabundance of undergraduate and graduate students in the applied sciences. This will not only prove to be a good indicator that we are solving the Mathematics problem, but also pave the way to that elusive 'Silicon Valley'. We need to get to the stage where we can do the necessary research, design and development of equipment to produce value added products from our world-class agricultural products such as ginger, pimento and cocoa. These R&D activities will support the first-rate research activities being conducted in numerous facilities across the island such as the Scientific Research Council.
ON SILICON VALLEYS
There has been much talk of transforming Jamaica into the Silicon Valley of the Caribbean. Whilst this is a noble intent, we have to engender a culture of continuous development of the human capital facilitated by progressive Government policies. Take the case of India, the hub for out-sourced services requiring customer interaction. Like China, sights are set on India for their engineering-trained labour force. Even here in Jamaica, a relatively large portion of the IT engineering positions are staffed by Indian nationals. By some estimates, there are more IT engineers in Bangalore (150,000) than in Silicon Valley (120,000). Bangalore has seen a major technology boom since the early 1980s and is now home to more than 250 high-tech companies. Consequently, now Bangalore is called the 'Silicon Valley' of India. While there are many reasons for this growth, it is mainly the pleasant climate, the talent pool of highly trained professionals, the training infrastructure and progressive Government policies that have led to this amazing IT explosion in the city.
THE GSAT FACTOR
I note with interest the basis of discussion established by veteran educator Dr. Ralph Thompson in his contribution to the Sunday Gleaner of November 14, 2003 titled 'Education on the Ropes'. I agree wholeheartedly that discussions about pass rates must be done on the basis of a percentage of cohort of students in the school and not merely those who wrote the exam.
For quite some time now, our Mathematics educators, technocrats, policymakers and parents have expressed grave concern about low levels of achievement at critical stages in the system. A look at two key stages grade 6 (GSAT) and grade 11 (CXC) (see Table I ) firmly establishes the background. Over the period, GSAT passes in Mathematics peaked at 52 per cent.
Since the release of the results for the June 2004 CXC examinations, there has been much talk about 'The GSAT Factor'. The 2004 CXC cohort was the initial group of students to sit the GSAT examinations in 1999. At this initial sitting, the mean score obtained in Mathematics was 42 per cent. Five years later in 2004, approximately 40 per cent of the GSAT awardees were allowed to sit Mathematics at the CXC level. These 15,394 students turned in an average pass rate just under 10 per cent. An interesting academic exercise would be one that seeks to establish the correlation between an individual's GSAT score and their CXC award in Mathematics five years later.
CRITICAL NATIONAL
MISSED
The Way Upward the 2001 Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture's White Paper identified 14 critical minimum targets, achievement of which was expected to favourably position the Ministry of Education, Youth and culture in their quest to achieve their stated strategic objectives. In relation to the performance of our students at the secondary level, the document read: five per cent annual improvement in the number of students passing English and Mathematics in the Secondary Examination Certificate (CXC) in relation to the total Grade 11 sitting. The National Council on
Education (NCE) is the government agency mandated to assess the attainment of the targets. The June 2000 examinations results have been established as the baseline for their assessment.
Using the June 2004 results as a checkpoint, a net improvement of 1,197 students passing would have to be attained for this target to be achieved. Therefore, the critical minimum target would have been achieved at the time of writing if at least 6,749 students had passed the examination. The actual results paint another reality we have missed the target (See Table 2).
Over the past four years (2001 2004), there has been a net decline of 35 per cent in the number of students in the public school system passing the examination. Instead of having 6,390 persons attaining passing grades, a mere 3,584 actually passed. In a nutshell the target has been missed by a whopping 44 per cent (3,165 passes).
THE 80-20 RULE
In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that 20 per cent of the people owned 80 per cent of the wealth. After Pareto made his observation and created his formula, many others observed similar phenomena in their own areas of expertise.
The 80/20 Rule means that in anything a few (20 per cent) are vital and many (80 per cent) are trivial. What we have observed in Mathematics is that 20 per cent of our schools (30+ schools) are responsible for approximately 80 per cent of the passes nationally. This 20 per cent could possibly form the basis for studying what is right in a system where so much seems to be wrong.
To the extent where the good performances have been sustained over time, one can reason that it (the performance) did not happen by chance. Regardless of what we perceive the problems to be, solutions cannot be so difficult to come by. All problems, however big they initially appear, are really a composite of smaller problems. Problem solving is a process. It is a very exacting process that ideally needs to be undertaken by trained problem solvers. Determining the causes of a problem is a critical task that cannot be side-stepped. Until a structured approach is taken to identify the causes of the continuing poor performance at each critical stage of our system, we will continue to postulate. It has been suggested that the problem has roots at the pre-primary level. Others have suggested that the problem has its genesis at the teacher training institutions. To what extent are these suggestions true?
Solutions are infinite and may include local, regional or international components. It may involve radical changes at the pre-primary level as well as a serious revamping of the way we teach teachers to go out and teach Mathematics. Whatever the components, it is certain that we will not have to rebuild these components or develop any new formula. One of the oldest mathematical problems (the 400 year old packing problem posed by astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1611) was recently solved by an American Mathematician Thomas Hales. The proof involves 250 pages of text and about three gigabytes of computer programs and data. The solution to Jamaica's Mathematics problem may be as old as the packing problem but is nowhere as difficult.
US SEEKS HELP FOR MATHEMATICS PROBLEM
In September 2002, U.S. Secretary for Education, Rod Paige and Singapore's Education Minister signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which serves to formalise and strengthen the existing exchanges and collaborations in education between the two countries. As a start, there will be a joint U.S.-Singapore study of Singapore's approach to the teaching and learning of Mathematics. One of the aims of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the use of Singapore Mathematics textbooks in U.S. schools. Singapore students had performed well at the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS-95) and its follow-up study in 1999, coming in first out of 38 nations in both studies. The results revealed substantial differences in Mathematics achievement between the high and low performing countries, from an average of 604 for Singapore to 275 for South Africa. At an average score of 502, the U.S. was ranked 19th. In general, only the most proficient students in the lower-performing countries approached the level of achievement of Singaporean students of average proficiency.
With hopes that Jamaica will become a developed country by 2017, it is instructive that the country takes steps to having Jamaica included as a part of this international study. This is with a view to comparing our performance against international benchmarks and where necessary, collaborating with one of the Asian tigers. This should be in an effort to be pulled out of Swamp Mathematics by one of the Kings of the Mathematics Jungle.
Can we afford not to solve this National Mathematics problem?
