Signs of impending math crisis were evident - Crawford

By Racquel Porter  

 

Opposition Spokesman on Education Senator Damion Crawford says it was evident from as far back as 2017, that a mathematics crisis was looming.

 

Speaking at a virtual press briefing hosted by the People's National Party at its St. Andrew headquarters on Wednesday, Senator Crawford argued that the Ministry of Education failed to acknowledge the warnings.

 

Mr. Crawford said based on his analysis, the poor outcome has its genesis in the first exam the students sat seven years ago. 

 

"The four-grade numeracy was 66 per cent at that time. Then, I moved to 2019, this cohort's PEP mathematics would have been 41 per cent. And it goes to explain, therefore, one of the reasons that we may have this cohort's CXC maths being at 36 per cent. In doing the analysis, I became very concerned because even at the PEP level, high proficiency was only 2,624 of the 40,000 students that did the exam," he pointed out. 

 

With 23,700 of those students at the time not achieving simple proficiency, Senator Crawford said his investigation reveals that the ministry failed to remedy the issue. 

 

"It shows that very little remedial effort was taken between when we saw there was a problem in grade 4, and again saw that there was a problem in grade 6. And we waited until the problem really starts to show itself with limited ability to remediate in grade 11. That has caused for many not to be able to matriculate to the university and for us to have 18 per cent having five subjects, including math and English, compared to Trinidad, who is 45 per cent," he noted.

 

He said his analysis also revealed that the students who secured a grade one in CSEC Mathematics had been evaluated as highly proficient in the subject following the PEP exams.

 

 

Meanwhile, Senator Crawford wants the Ministry of Education to provide a report on the number of teachers who have migrated during the last five years. 

 

"For some reason, the government believes it is satisfactorily to say 'a lot' or 'less' - none of which is an objective measure for us to work from. We also would like to know what is the number of posts that have not been filled for any period of time over the last four years. Now, it is important for us to differentiate simply not been filled as versus not been filled for any period of time," he asserted.  

 

Mr. Crawford said he has received reports that some students who sat CSEC Mathematics had been without a teacher for two years.