P.S.E. Performance: Same Old, Same Old

The results of the Primary School Examinations for 2019 were released on Monday and while we have been able to speak with the top performers across the country, we did not get a chance to hear from the Minister of Education on the outcome of the P.S.E.   That was until this afternoon when we caught up with him at an event in Belize City.  During our Q and A with Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber he spoke about the overall performance of students who sat the exams this year, saying that there has been no improvements when compared to previous years.  In fact, Minister Faber went on to acknowledge that there has been a dip in the performance of students who sat the Science papers.  Here’s how he summed up the results of the exams.

Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“The results this year don’t demonstrate any departure from what we are now very accustomed to and that is, for us, very concerning.  Some will point out in fact that there are some areas that have gone down.  I think they’ve said that Science has gone down a bit and those matters are concerning for us.  So we will look at the situation and of course redouble our efforts once again to ensure that these holes are plugged.  But by and large there have been tremendous investments on the part of the government, tremendous interventions on the part of the Ministry of Education in order to ensure that these grades are improving but also the chances of our children to survive in the world after they leave primary school improve.  To that end, while it is that the government will not shy away from its responsibility, we must consider as well that there are other factors that affect how our children are performing and that means that everybody needs to tighten up.  The teachers who now are very qualified, the government has invested a lot of money in ensuring that teachers are far more qualified.  As a result of that, that has taken up the wage bill of the government as it relates to paying teachers and so we have to start demanding greater quality from our teachers as well.  Our parents who start off in their children’s lives, very much involved, very active and seem to fade away during the process of their primary school years until it’s graduation time and we get to this stage and everybody’s so proud of their children but they’re missing for a while.  It’s not an attack on anybody, I think there are some very good teachers, there are some very good parents and, in fact, the ministry has done what it needs to do but can do much better.  So it is rather than a criticism, it is a call to arms for all the stakeholders who have this as their interest and, for us that is everybody, for them to say, you know what, let us do what we need to do, let us examine what needs to happen in order for us to fix these problems.”