Curriculum Reform is Eminent

Yolanda Gongora

Curriculum reform comes into effect at the start of the new school year in September. For many it is about cutting out the fluff, however, Chief Education Officer Yolanda Gongora explains that discussions began in 2018.  It was later reaffirmed by the COVID-19 pandemic that the number of subjects taken by students is voluminous and there must be some level of integration into core areas. This, the Ministry of Education believes, will prepare students to assist with the economic development of the country. Gongora says education is not about volume, but about quality.

Yolanda Gongora, Chief Education Officer

“I am not a part of the committee and the group that is coordinating those efforts, but we have identified that there are over ten thousand learning outcomes. Those are the areas that we are looking at. At the end of this month, the ministry’s senior team – myself, the C.E.O. and the minister – will be receiving the actual recommendations for that and the curriculum change that we will be making. After we do that revision, then it will be launched. It’s integrating the subjects, reducing the learning outcomes. For example, we look at P.E. We were teaching P.E. isolated, but P.E. could be taught with life skills, it can be taught within the science subjects. So if you are doing general science and you have to deal with your body, weight and stuff like that, then we integrate P.E. So instead of teaching subjects isolated, we are integrating now. We are hopeful that our teachers; I know that they are very supportive. They have been going from district to district and they know and recognize that it is time to reduce the number of subjects. In some schools, you had fourteen sixteen subjects. And remember with C.X.C., in secondary schools for CSEC, for you to be top student, you use to sit twenty-two, twenty-three and those were independent – that took a lot from the child. It is not about the volume, but it is about the quality.”