Kudos to our education minister.
At the behest of Education Minister Rolston Anglin, his ministry and
the Department of Education, new graduation requirements have been rolled out.
It means that graduating students will be given a diploma based on
their actual abilities.
While the diploma news is good, we don’t think it’s enough.
How many children will receive the most basic of diplomas because they
slipped through the cracks in the early stages of their education?
If Johnny can’t read and write when it’s time for him to graduate high
school, is it really his fault?
Shouldn’t we be blaming social promotion?
Social promotion is the practice of promoting a student to the next
grade despite their low achievement in order to keep them with social peers.
Advocates of social promotion argue that promotion is done so as not to
harm the students’ self-esteem.
Where is the self esteem when, at the end of secondary school, a
student is told you did well enough to leave, but not well enough to pursue
further education or get a meaningful job?
If the education system sees that Johnny can’t read as he’s about to
leave Year 2 or thereabouts, then he should be held back.
There should be tests given at distinct levels throughout a child’s
education to ensure that children educated in the Cayman Islands have achieved
certain, required levels of education.
Not only would it be a test for the students, but also a test for the
education system at large in the Cayman Islands. At the end of the day it is
the responsibility of our education system to properly educate our students to,
at the basic level, read and write. All children coming out of the Government –
and private – education systems in the Cayman Islands should be able to, at
least, perform those two basic of tasks.
A prominent businessman in Cayman warned years ago that while
businesses are happy to train Caymanian school leavers to do a job, they are
not prepared nor desire to educate them. That should be done long before a
student receives any kind of diploma.
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You got your sailors mixed up.
You better thank the UK that is on the lawmakers case.
This is the UK’s doing, don’t let them fool you.
The UK means business and that is our government must deliver partnership for progress and prosperrity to the Caymanian people even if it means changing graduation requirement. Education is the key to success.
Its the UK my dear not the politicians that is making these changes. They have been sitting on their ….all this time its the UK survey response to feedback.
Kudos UK.