And switching now to better news, the Ministry of Education has launched its new National Curriculum Framework.
The gist of it? An innovative student-central curriculum where learning is personalized rather than institutional, and archaic punitive measures just for punishment's sake are removed from the educational experience.
7 News attended the launch and Jules Vasquez has the story:
It's called a competency-based curriculum - and at its launch today at the House of Culture, it was bannered as a revolution in education:
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Min. Of State - Education
"The competency based curriculum will enable all students to learn how to think clearly, speak clearly, read well, write well, apply knowledge and understand and impact the world around them through social interactions, analytical thinking and human agency. New competencies that are being promoted include one, appreciation of the sacred nature of the human person and character development; two, emotional intelligence and effective communication skills; three, critical and innovative, inventive thinking; four, collaboration; five, multicultural appreciation; six, digital literacy and seven, understanding of and advocacy for sustainable human development."
Dr. Mathias Vairez, Curriculum Reform Steering Committee
"So, what is competency-based assessment? Competency based assessment should be a learning experience that is meaningful, positive, and empowering for all those involved. Primarily the student, the educator, and the educational leader. So, in competency based assessments we have to asses knowledge, we have to assess skills, we also have to assess what I refer to as the non-cognitive factors, the social emotional skills, the values, attitudes and character. What is the sense of having someone who has a 4.0 GPA academically but cannot relate with people, cannot collaborate with people? What's the sense?"
Dr. Priscilla Brown, Curriculum Reform Steering Committee
"It calls for an end to rhetorical teaching approaches in which students sit and listen, write notes and regurgitate information. It moves away from the traditional group activities once coined as student-centered where students sat in groups and communicate and restate information from a lesson. So that is what this is all about, it is focused on developing a clear understanding of concepts and demonstrating whole skills associated with meaningful and relevant lessons that tend to orientate learning. The focus is on mastery and not on regurgitation of ideas. We are all fixed on skills and focused on performance-based outcomes. This acknowledges that survival in the world of work and growing economy is not only what you know but what our students can do and their level of performance."
Miriam Paz, Teacher's Perspective
"It is a curriculum what emphasizes what learners are expected to do rather than focusing on what they are expected to know."
Yadira Sabal, Student's Perspective
"This new approach emphasizes that teachers provide opportunities to students to serve real-life problems, incorporate practical experiences and even challenge students to think outside the box by doing more class experiments and activities that will allow the student to be more interactive during class sessions."
It sounds like a revelation - but if it is - it was discovered after years of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Now, they are finally trying something new.
Dr. Mathias Vairez, Curriculum Reform Steering Committee
"And consistently over 10 years looking at the PSE data, student achievements were low. More than 40% of the students not reaching the desired competency level or knowledge level. What was even more alarming was that there were special groups of students that even performed consistently lower over that ten-year period. Students coming from under-served communities, such as my community down south."
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Min. Of State - Education
"It was unanimous that we have been straining under the weight of too many subjects and an excessive number of learning outcomes within subjects. Our children literally have had to carry large backpacks to school, many with wheels to ease the burden and parents have had to be doing their children's homework keeping them up late at night. Teachers have struggled to keep up with the ballooning expectations that by reducing our overload we provide the opportunity for our teachers to endure less harmful stress and for our students to improve their performance."
Elena Smith, BNTU President
"We are overburdened, we spend so much time planning lessons that we have little time to plan activities, and games for our students."
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Min. Of State - Education
"We are convinced that together we can finally break the shackles of a dysfunctional education system and transform to provide a high-quality education for our students. The victory will be for all of us and especially for our children."
But there's no magic wand to set the students free from a failed education system - and this implementation will take at least another year:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"As we've said, this year is a transition year, a pilot year and certainly based on this years' experience we will learn certain things which will allow us to make changes and adapt the curriculum so that come next year I believe we will be able to implement it fully and effectively."
And that's - of course - in consultation with stakeholders - including the churches - which led us to ask what temporal or spiritual shape this new curriculum will take.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I don't think we should try to box the curriculum into any type of framework. No, we are not about teaching our students through any prism. I don't want to limit it to a Christian prism or any other prism. We are not, but a central component of this curriculum of course is values-based education as well. So, we understand that it is an integral component of producing quality citizens."
Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Min. Of State - Education
"We're not branding specifically what the curriculum will be, whether it's a liberal or conservative curriculum. It's a Belizean curriculum that is going to be serving the needs of Belize's development."
An easy generalization - but in the months to come - his partners in education will surely require definitives.
