P.S.E. Top Scorers Honored by Ministry of Education
The IQ at the Bliss went up today as primary school students from across the country converged for the annual national P.S.E. Award Ceremony. Top scorers were honored and walked away with plaques, computers, tablets and scholarships for their hard work and outstanding performances in the 2015 P.S.E. exams. The top scorer, thirteen year old Gabriel Hope encouraged his peers to keep their eyes on the prize. Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Hundreds of students from across the country were honored at the annual P.S.E. Award Ceremony held today at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts. The event, as usual, acknowledged the accomplishments of the top scorers for the primary school examinations 2015 in the areas of Math, English, Science and Social Studies. Addressing the event was Minister of Education, Patrick Faber.
Patrick Faber
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“As I expressed in my remarks this morning, we want to see an improvement. We believe that in terms of our education system, we continue to make certain gains that will translated into better performance for all our schools. You will see this morning that we not only awarded our top performance, the individual students; that is, we also awarded schools. We see that many of these schools are steadily developing and that is what we believe down the road will translate to greater success for our students.”
This year’s top student is Gabriel Hope of the Bernice Yorke Institute of Learning. Hope says that the assistance of friends and family as well as his teachers allowed him to excel. In his address, Hope asked his colleagues to be challengers and not followers.
Gabriel Hope
Gabriel Hope, Top Scorer, P.S.E. 2015
“We are here today with an earnest desire to succeed in life. We don’t want to be employees but also employers, creating our own opportunities. We need to be more involved in issues that affect us and stop being spectators; be challengers and not followers. We are intelligent students with the technological knowledge and ability to compete in this new modern world. I challenge us to develop or be a part of a group to develop something new and innovative that can create employment for all Belizeans. Let us engage in discussions that would bring about quality changes in Belize. While we have gone physically, intellectually and emotionally, our individual challenges have been different; therefore, allowing us to have different views on life. We are all reflections of people who we keep on our lives and interact with on a daily basis.”
While there have been slight improvements in certain subject areas, Faber says that the ministry is not at all pleased with the results and continues to look for ways to improve results.
Patrick Faber
“There’s a lot going on in terms of teacher training, but you are right Aaron, we are going to be focusing on English, Math and Science; those are in fact the key subjects in primary school exams and these are also the core subjects that are needed in order for them to go on to higher education—whether that be high school or beyond—so that focus is coming. You know that we’ve secured monies now from EQUIP Program that is funded by the IDB and that’s twenty million dollars. We continue to try to strengthen our systems through our various different initiatives, the sector strategy plan as well that we see five million dollars being invested in to strengthen the regulatory framework. Those consultations have now been concluded and we are now trying to make sure that that becomes a reality.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
