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High Failure Rate

High Failure Rate

The Education Minister is currently lamenting over what seems to be a high failure rate among primary and secondary students in Trinidad & Tobago. What do you think is the cause of this high failure rate?

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Many factors Rasta, let me point out some of them:

1. The whole SEA exam (Absolutely unnecessary, creates such a stress for young children and never proved to be efficient). Most children in Secondary School do not know how to spell or do basic Math.

2. Learning disabilities (We have thousands of kids in Trinidad and Tobago with learning disabilities that have not been diagnosed neither treated).

3. Lack of parental support (Children need their parent's support while in school, very few get it).

4. Poor teaching techniques (We have a problem of trained teachers in the country, a lot of them do not know how to teach efficiently and a lot of kids end up lost between topics).

Mrs. Manning says that those kids who performed 30 or less in the SEA exam will repeat...but what about those making 35% out of 100! Can that figure be acceptable for entering Secondary School? Certainly not! They just need to get rid of the Common Entrance thing and just have a normal Primary and Secondary School.

High Failure Rate Caribbean / Tobago & Trinidad

Nice topic Rasta, I am surprised that you didn't get more replies. LDS_forever I agree with you on points 2, 3 and 4 but I feel we need an entrance exam for secondary schools (either command entrance or SEA). The problem in the secondary schools I should say is that every child is getting a place. This is madness, I said when it was introduced and I continue to say it now. You cannot give every child a place regardless of what they do in the exam. I have supervised exams and have seen children (more than once) literally do nothing in the exam. Now you tell me that it is fair to send this child to secondary school. There are children who cannot handle secondary school and they are being forced to go. You wonder why there is a high failure rate? An entrance exam is also necessary LSD to put the brighter children in the good schools that they deserve. The slower children should be encouraged to do a trade or skill of some kind. I look forward to further discussions.

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I disagree with most of your points, let me quote you:

Why we "need" it? Countries around the world do not have such exam yet they have a successful education rate.

Every child in the country should be entitled to an Education. I do not believe for a minute as a teacher, that a child cannot perform in a secondary school regardless of their challenges. If they get the right treatment, caring teachers and support they can do anything they want to accomplish. The problem is that NOBODY (parents, teachers, system in general) is willing to help them to go the long route, so it is always better to throw them in a Junior Secondary School, after all they are not "bright".

The Education system in the country do not cater for the slow learner but for the brighter. Very unfair.

I cannot stand this idea. I just cannot understand how people can actually think in labeling children into schools based on a stupid exam and then we wonder why teenagers in Trinidad have such a low self-esteem? If the "bright" ones are lift up in the "convents" and the "dumb" ones in the Junior Sec. Trinidadians do not realize at all the kind of harm they are causing to children by thinking in this manner. No wonder children here get a good lash by their parents when they do not perform properly at school. Sad.

The slower children can learn the EXACT SAME things than the average student can, it just make take longer to assimilate the concepts and probably using innovative teaching methods but they can reach the same goal. Music, drama, sports should also be encouraged within this last group.

We should "graduate" from the old thinking that "Math, English and business", your son becoming a "doctor" is what we want for our kids. That children should sit down on a desk for hours in order to learn something. Non-sense.

Every child in this country should feel they are capable of achieving great things. That's one of the things I admire about the US system of Education, they have a degree for anything! So ANYONE (regardless of their capabilities) can access an Education and feel he/she has accomplished something of value in their lives.

In Trinidad so far, if you have been born with learning disabilities, you are basically doomed. It's really pathetic.

Kid of such young age should not feel stressed out about performing in a exam! Sometimes I am shocked seeing kids crying when they get the results.

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Ok first of all I would like to offer two apologies. Firstly for taking so long to reply to the posts and secondly LDS_forever, I didn't mean to call you LSD. It was simply a typo, I didn't mean anything by it. Again I am sorry . Now back to the topic. Well LDS_forever we can argue about who thinks they are correct but that will be wasting time, so I will try to be brief. As I said in my post, I agree with you mostly, we are on the same page but I am still of the firm belief that an entrance exam is needed. The first mistake that a lot of trinis do (and LDS I believe you are guilty of this) is compare Trinidad to other parts of the world, especially the US. Not only is this not practical, it is simply not fair to either party. You say that other countries an entrance exam is not used and they do quite well in life. I agree this can and does work in other countries but it cannot work here. The US for example has a different education system to ours, the people are different too. That's why it works for them. The US has a lot more options for their students. Why do you think they do so well in gymnastics at the Olympics, and track and field and so on. You get the idea? This is already too long, so I will stop here. I will respond to further discussions on this. Thanks for critic though, I am not insulted by that. I am glad to see this forum has potential for great minds. Looking forward to further discussions.

High Failure Rate

Lordryoko:

Well, I am not a Trinidadian so I do not think I am "guilty" of this. I am merely drawing an obvious comparison based on my experience living in other countries and now living in Trinidad for several years.

They do well because they have a proper system of Education put in place and Trinidad does not. Our system is archaic in every sense of the word. We can do much better to what is being done and we need to be open to new ideas and be wise as to observe what it works for other countries around the world and see how can we establish a unique system for this country. The whole issue is that reform in the Education system is NOT a priority for this or any other government that have been in power. We will continue seeing high failure rates, teenagers reaching secondary school without knowing how to read or do basic math and those same ones getting into fights because their needs are not being properly addressed.

If a system is NOT working, needs to be change! I am usually surprised how Trinis in general boast themselves on their Education system since it is really poor in every aspect. Just because we have some good minds getting scholarships does not reflect the general situation of the country.

High Failure Rate

I agree the education system here is failing our youths. That is why we are paying for it now with all the crime in our society. On that note though it boggles my mind that certain schools will always do well and produce outstanding pupils. Now as I see it, these schools are under the same education system that is failing a lot of our youths. Now why is it that some schools produce scholars and some produce the bandits? The answers to that is a whole other post but I think you see where I am coming from. I am not saying that you are not right but something else seem to also have an impact on what is happening out there. Oh and by the way, I have three sisters and one brother who went through the Junior Sec and Senior comp system and they have all done quite well at school and continue to do so now in their lives. That shows you that you can succeed no matter where you go. There are also some things that you do at the junior sec and senior comp system that you don't do at the colleges, like technical drwaing, wood and metal work, auto mechanics. When I went to JohnD to do Mechanical Engineering some years ago, technical drawing was one of the subjects there. I was totally lost and jeered at by my classmates who went through the junior sec system. With their help I was able to pass it, (I helped them in physics and add math). Today they are engineers and I am a primary school teacher. hehe maybe they were the smart ones eh?
Looking forward to further discussions.