Concerned parents yesterday expressed outrage over this year’s national BGCSE average results, which remained at D+, and demanded an overhaul of the educational system. Clever Duncombe, president of Bahamian Fathers for Children Everywhere, said this year’s BGCSE results are a clear indication that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
“Of course a D+ is better than an F but then we are talking about building a nation and moving our country forward,” said Mr Duncombe. “How productive can we be with students graduating with a D+ or not even meeting the minimum standards? It is not the precedent we want to set for future generations.”
Businessman Gary Sands pointed out that if the education ‘crisis’ continues employers may have to turn to a foreign workforce.
“If our education system continues to decline then we will continue to have to bring in people from outside of the country,” said the concerned citizen. “This is not a political problem. It is a national problem, a concern for the entire Bahamas.”
Meanwhile on Monday, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Veronica Owens, confirmed the D+ average to the Nassau Guardian.
She said: “I would say society is in a crisis. Society is in a crisis for any number of reasons, but the main reason [is] that we don’t want to face facts. This is a big picture of what’s happening on a smaller scale, so education being in a crisis, can’t be looked at in isolation of what’s happening in society at large.”
Ms Owens, who at the time admitted that she had not seen the document, said parents ought to start picking up the slack for their children’s failure, after the scores of the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) examinations were tallied.
Earlier this year, Minister of Education Alfred Sears admitted that there was an education crisis in the country.
“We are at a crossroads,” he said. “We have a crisis on our hands. We have too many students within our schools who are not making the mark and we have to make some critical decisions about the national curriculum, about the way we structure our schools, the way we train our teachers, the way we compensate our teachers and administrators, so that at the end of the day, we have a much more competent student population.”
Last year’s national D+ average sent shockwaves through the country, as parents and teachers alike fished for answers to the below average grade.
But according to Ministry of Education officials, the 2005 results were an improvement. The BGCSE mean had risen from a D, which was the national mean in the years 2002-2004.
The 2005 BGCSE results also showed that only 12 of the 16 private high schools in New Providence were operating above the BGCSE national mean, while only three government high schools met the national D+ grade average.
St. Andrew’s school and St. Augustine’s College, both received an average of “C+,” the highest BGCSE results in the country. Coming in second in New Providence with a “C,” was Kingsway Academy, Nassau Christian Academy, Queens College, and St. Johns College. Aquinas College, Bahamas Academy, Prince William High school, St. Anne’s High, Temple Christian High and Faith Temple Christian Schools, all achieved the third highest mean of “C-.”
By: JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian
