National/Regional standards of secondary education complete
By all accounts, it has taken a lot of work and a number of consultations with a wide range of educators, but work on the National and Regional Standards of Secondary Education is finally complete. Today, the document was presented to Minister of Education Francis Fonseca during brief ceremonies this morning. The project focussed on the subject areas of English, Mathematics, Spanish, Integrated Science, Social Studies, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. Initiated in 1999, the project was supported by the Organization of Latin American States for the Education of Science and Culture and the Coordination of Education and Culture in Central America, CECC, which obtained funding from the Republic of China(Taiwan). As part of the work plan, teams from all participating countries were established to gather data.
Nelson Longsworth, National Coordinator, Project
?In our secondary system, I think there is quite a disparity between the outputs form secondary schools and this is not common to only Belize but throughout Central America. So we needed some guide that will be able to pull us together to educate secondary students to a level that we can be very happy about.?
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
?What type of secondary school student do we want to produce here in Belize? And what inputs are required to produce that student? What knowledge, skills, information, and values do we want to impart to that student? How will we deliver that information, that knowledge, and those skills? How will we assess and validate the learning process and the students it produces? Standards–I believe–allow us to answer these questions. Standards provide us with guiding principles and a sense of purpose in our approach to education, allowing us to set clear targets and specific bench marks on the way to meeting those targets.?
Nelson Longsworth
?But more importantly though I think a very big plus which is needed in the system is to engage parents. So that they are aware of what should be taught within the secondary schools; in the subject areas that we define.?
Francis Fonseca
In CARICOM we are implementing the single market and economy which has tremendous implications for our nation?s future, growth and development socially, politically and economically. Under this new regime, we would establish a national accreditation council aimed at providing clearly defined standards and criteria for education and training. Today we celebrate our collaboration with our brothers and sisters in Central America. Belize has been proud to participate in this project both at the national and regional levels.?
CECC’s Secretary General, Marvin Herrera, maintains that the project is conducting ground-breaking work as Central America is the only block of seven countries in Latin America that is actively pursuing the definition of standards in Secondary Education.
