PSE Reflection

I received my first loan when I was 32 and this helped my family very much. Nevertheless, I need the credit loan once again.

IS the PSE passing mark so low? why it is not at 70%?
From when i was growing uo the passing mark was 70%.

Setting a low marking mark only makes teh children want to do enough to just make the grade. we have to set high standards.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

make these comments sometimes, that their kids aren't good n English since they speak creole, as if to say that they would do better is the test were in creole. First of all, there isn't a standard by which creole goes, in terms of grammar and spelling. Kids speak creole, but believe me they can't read it fi shit. I remember once in high school we used Snapshots of Belize in literature, it was funny only 2 people could actually read it and with difficulty. The same way a child would have to learn Creole is the same way they can learn English. I know its not easy, but its due to other factors that kids have difficulty with English and other subjects for that matter. Like Glenn said, everyone has a part in it, the parents, the school/teachers, Gov't and most importantly the child themselves.
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but she said the children are not comfortable doing the test in English. so what language does she want the children to do the test in?

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

Just because you do not read or write in Kriol, Spanish, Garifuna, Quiche, Maya, Chinese, or Hindi, does not mean it cannot be your "First Language". Your "First Language" is the language you learn first, and in which you communicate most. Oral communication is the most prevalent form of communication.
It has been proven that when most students are taught English as a second language, (commonly referred to by the acronym ESL), they do better in English as well as in their other subjects. It is actually easier to learn proper grammer if it is taught to you as though you did not know how to "speak" and "read" English. The fact that the top student was a Chinese, who I assume speaks a Mandarin or Confucian variation, simply proves the teacher's point.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

hence that is why Silvana and the kriol project is working hard to have Kriol as its own language. So you can differentiate between the two.

And when in class when the teachers say speak in English, you should leave the Kriol outside.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

New 5:

Jamuna Vasquez, Hummingbird Elementary
“I think the first thing that we need to address is the fact that a majority of our children go to school and that English is not their first language.”

Jamuna Vasquez
“We need to start teaching English as a second language. Our kids can do much better overall if we start addressing that. I think that’s the first place where we need start addressing. They are not comfortable taking the exams in English and I think that’s the first areas we need to look at.”

i agree that for most or 99.8% of students, English is not their first language. there first language could be, Kriol, Garifuna, Maya, Chinese, etc. the approach of teaching as a second language has its pro and cons. I'm not getting into that.

My point is, all these children grew up reading, writing English so i believe that they should be comfortable enough to do a test in English. Where do that teacher get off by say the students are not confortable taking the test in English.

What does she suggest? writing the test in different languages, Kriol, maya, garifua, chinese?

How many of us know how to read, write creole, maya, garifuna, etc?

In case she missed it, English is the offical language of Belize and the top PSE scorer is a Chinese girl and so was last yr's top scorer, and English are not their first language. If they can do why can't the others?

Here is the link in case you want to read the news item.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

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1. That what happened with Luke Espat in regards to his purchase of the VOA site in Toledo was neither illegal or unethical, and the inquiry will bear that out.
2. Neither DFC or Belizean taxpayers will be out of pocket as a result of what happened.
These types of allegations get repeated like gospel in the public, but notice not by the persons or organizations that can be held accountable. It's like the story of the "Minister's wife" who was supposedly caught trying to smuggle money through a US airport. Despite denials by the US Government, the Belize Government, and the minister and his wife, that anything even remotely like that ever happened, the story is often repeated as fact. The only thing that keeps changing is the amount of money. I just heard the story repeated on Monday whilst I was down south and the amount is now 10.5 million US dollars.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

their watch....
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like the thing with Luke happened and the PUP were not aware of what was happening......

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Luke Espat did not get away "Scotch Free" with our money. There is an investigation by a tribunal of respected persons examining DFC accounts and there will be a reckoning, if so be the case.

The primary school system, which is majority church-state managed, gets the money allocated to it in the budget, and they, the schools do the spending. You can always spend money, Roadie, regardless of the amount. My question is whether or not the money is being spent properly by the schools. GOB gives them the money remember. It is not the politicians who are spending the money - it is the public officers in the case of the Ministry of Education, and the school managers and principals in the case of the schools.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

Commitment, dedication, competence.
These are qualities that our Leaders (the few that lead) don't have. What happened to the Intelco deal which included internet access, PA system, and computers in the class room?
We are great at coming up with ideas just horrible at executing, all those qualities you mentioned are need for the execution of an idea/plan.

Bureaucracy(george price style) I would be mad too, but that’s not the case, at least an overstaffed bureaucracy meant most Belizeans could find employment with government. Instead the money is being gobbled up by a few who are running a tight, tight ship and they get all the breaks at our expense.

Both of these descriptions are bad, but again at least we know more money would be reaching the bottom.

J

where schools are rewarded or punished based on test scores. It is controvertial, and I am not sure that it solved the problem because they soon found out that schools hedged their bets by simply making tests easier, and excluding, whenever and wherever they could, children who were poor students.
I don't want to sound like a broken needle on a scratched record but more money is not necessarily the answer to many of our problems. Commitment, dedication, competence, is more like it, in my view.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

throw more money at the problem. Cause there isn't enough money left for other things after salaries are paid. So now you see what I mean about only so much food (money) to go around, and it hurts to see guys like Luke Espat and the usual suspects get away scotch free with our money. Yes our money.

if test results go up, then the teacher gets a bonus. The problem with that is that most teachers wanted to teach in more affluent schools cause they stand a better chance of getting a bonus.

So do people with money or middle class people pay more attention to their children schooling? You know get more involved, hire tutors etc...

cynical as you are, and why you prefer to believe the worst.
The fact is that if you're willing to be logical it is fairly easy to determine whether or not the overwhelming majority of the education budget is spent on what it was earmarked for. The sad truth is that the overwhelming majority of the money spent on education goes for salaries, and when people don't get paid, or don't get what they're promised, they take to the streets, etc.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

I would be surprised if the money thats earmarked for education actually reaches the class room, or maybe gets lost along the way in the form of an inflated contract or fake scholarships, all hustles and forms of corruption etc...

Dr. Israel is the PAHO's representative in Belize, and she was explaining to me how the Human Develoment Index works. The HDI has become the primary measuring stick, if you will, for determining whether or not countries are improving the lot of their citizens.
If you were to go by this index, Belize's citizens are a lot better off today than they were eight years ago.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

corruption has a way of working itself down and lowering our standards of living and quality of life. Don't you think that includes education? Come on its all tied in, I agree we might not be able to single one reason out, but for sure corruption lowers our quality of life. So would you say that under this administration our standard of living has gone up, stayed, or dropped?

reason why PSE scores are lower than we would like them to be.
How many students go to school hungry? This administration spearheaded a Schools Canteen Program, (for urban schools) and is currently piloting a schools feeding program (for rural schools) in Toledo.
How did these hungry children do versus does who were not hungry?
Is it only the "non-hungry" children who passed?
It is easy to blame GOB. It is easy to blame "corruption". What is not easy are proper analysis and practical recommendations. We've spent and continue to spend a lot of money on education. I am sure we could spend more but a some point we have to ask ourselves what it is we're getting for the money we spend. Where is that point? After the first billion? After the second billion?

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

Including hungry belly pickney. I am working with a group that is providing meals to 200 kids per day. (I could be wrong about the number but I think the report they gave us was 200 kids). So if they don't have food, you think they will have a geometry set, or books etc…

Why you think things hard? Because of the excellent job GOB has done??? If you have just so much food (money) to go around and I hear about Luke Espat and all the other big snapper fish loan recipients getting away with pennies on the dollar or loan write offs, how can I not blame GOB? Every bad turn our country takes from now on is their fault. So until another government comes in and tops them on the corruption thing they stuck with it.

Glenn I have a feeling a lot of Belizeans share my sentiments.

Teachers and public officers were granted two consecutive increases as part of a deal struck with GOB four years ago. When GOB tried to withhold the third increase, they went on strike. Of course students suffered for being out of school and without classes for nearly three weeks.
I am not saying and would not say that GOB doesn't "deserve" some of the blame, but I also say that it deserves some credit.
The equation is GOB+Schools(teachers) +parents. What GOB has done or hasn't done is readily apparent, but how do we measure teachers' performance? And how do we measure parental participation?
A lot of the last is ancedotal but if what I heard on the media is correct, most of the students who did well mentioned good work habits, hard-working and committed teachers and parental participation as the keys to their success. Resources or lack thereof wasn't on anybody's list.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

The parents definitely have a load to carry and must take some of the blame. 5 percent at the PTA meeting is a damn shame, maybe the media can cover stories like this, maybe a little embarrassment can give them a reality check.

A lot of what I know about the problem comes from what I read in the media, not only local but also international. For example an American newspaper was covering the whole BNE oil story and they interviewed a teacher in Belmopan not far from the Geology office (or some Gov. Agency that deals with the oil, going off memory), the teacher was skeptical that any monies from the oil will trickling down to her class room. She proceeded to name of a long list of basic things that the average classroom was lacking.

I tried my hardest to find the article; I'll keep looking for it.

Along the same lines, the teachers went on strike to confront GOB over salary increases, political reform and taxes (probably forgot a couple). Who do you think ultimately suffered from this? Well the students of course, GOB increased (notice I didn’t say create) this climate of corruption that required some sort of a push back. All this comes into play, I don't think teachers will just walk of their jobs to play politics, I think the situation was so dread that they had to get up in GOB's face.

Glenn GOB is not without blame on this.

I was being sarcastic...lol
"Bad is never good until worse happens"

Since the PSE is NOT graded on a curve the kid would have failed the test whether or not the other school received the test beforehand.

I doubt the story is true anyway.

From a kid who took the PSE and failed miserably. He said that they gave the exams to the other schools except his beforehand. lol...no wanda he fail
"Bad is never good until worse happens"

hard to believe?
The reconciliation of the national accounts continued apace, and it is easy to ascertain. In fact it is probably much more than one billion, when you consider that Ministry of Education figures say that more than 2,000 new classrooms were added to the public school system during the last 8 years.
There is room to spend more money on education, sure, but my opinion is that we need more parents to be involved in their children's education.
My kids went to public school and I attended too many PTA meetings where less than 5% (yes FIVE PERCENT) of the parents showed up for meetings.

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

i was eavesdropping (something i don't practice) today and i over heard that it is rumored that the PSE was given to certain school before hand. So these school had a better advantage than others.

the idea behind was that certain schools can keep up the reputation is has.

But if they do this, are they really helping the students? the students are the only ones that suffer.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

to say that the standard is at an "all-time low" is just not true. Basically because there is nothing established to compare it against, unless you compare it to the raw BNSE scores and not the final grades. that would actually be an interesting exercise.

Uno shoulda remember that the BNSE used to fool us about how brillant we were because the final results were based on a curve and not on raw scores. the new system moves away from that. is it a good thing? I definitely think so.

throwing money at the problem is part of the answer but not the entire solution. the "free education" principle that the government brags about is flawed and is less about "Education" and more about "Votes".

My last comment is that the teachers of Belize are probably better trained than they have ever been.

i think the way things are, its better to be guilty until proven innocent. so let them prove it wasn't true.
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can I get a credit for all the fake scholarships that the ministry gave out. Remember the scholarships for kids that where too young to even be in school Or the phantom students. We know people lost their jobs because of that scandal so its real. I know, I know show me the proof...

yeah roady that doesn't sound right......
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to believe, but it is what it is. I am sure that involves figures from infant up to University, including teacher’s salaries etc... I still find it hard to believe. You say why throw more money at the problem, but its funny how the private schools all did good, the idea being that the private schools have better access to funds.

Back in my days we use to take the common entrance exam. I am not sure how that compares to this exam, but I really can't remember anyone failing that exam. I remember the challenge being to score the highest, cause your name was read out on the radio. I tried my hardest to remember the types of problems or the degree of difficulty on the exams and I just can't remember. What type of math problems and concepts going into the test now-a-days?

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
Primary School Examination Results
Belmopan - 01 June, 2006.
The Ministry of Education has released the results of the 2006 Primary School Examination (PSE). A total of 5915 candidates sat this year’s examination.
Tina Shen of Belize Elementary School in Belize City received the highest overall score with an aggregate score of 379 points out of a total of 400 points. The second highest overall score was obtained by Mischa-Von-Derek Aikman of Grace Primary School with a total of 372 points. Third highest overall score of 371 was obtained by Donovan Holder of Hummingbird Elementary School in Belize City.
Those candidates obtaining the highest performance by subject area are:
• English - Alexandria Hertular of Grace Primary School in Belize City with a total score of 96%
• Science - Wicky Cheng of Sacred Heart School in Stann Creek District, Eva Moss of Hummingbird Elementary School in Belize City, Wiebe Gordon of Linda Vista School in Orange Walk District, Joshua Smith of Mary Hill RC School in Corozal District, all four with a score of 96%
• Social Studies - Raheem Lozano of All Saints Primary School in Belize City with a score of 98%
• Mathematics – Perfect score of 100% in Mathematics was attained by four candidates – Tina Shen of Belize Elementary School, Donovan Holder of Hummingbird Elementary School, Alexandria Hertular of Grace Primary School , Jason Chen of Mary Hill Primary School in the Corozal District
National Mean Performance in English, 52.7 percent, showed some decline in performance compared to last year’s mean performance of 55.3 percent. National Mean Performance of 45.7 percent in Mathematics has shown some improvement, however, compared to last year’s mean performance of 42.4 percent.
National Mean Performance of 54.3 percent in Science also showed some improvement over last year’s performance of 52.8 percent. National Mean Performance of 58.1 percent in Social Studies is below last year’s mean performance of 60.4 percent.
The number of candidates sitting the PSE has steadily increased over the years and although the National Mean Performance on the subjects tested has not reflected significant differences over the last five years since the introduction of the PSE, individual schools have recorded significant improvement in overall performance.
Although private schools have maintained top positions in the PSE over the past five years, some schools have shown significant improvement in their overall performance. Such schools, just to mention a few, include: Grace Primary School (Belize City), Crooked Tree Govt. School (Belize District), St. Andrews School (Cayo District), Holy Redeemer School (Belize City), St. Joseph Primary School (Belize City), La Inmaculada RC School (Orange Walk District), and Pancotto Methodist School (Belize District).
There are also those schools whose overall performance on the PSE over the five-year period has consistently not shown satisfactory performance.
The Ministry of Education is committed to working with the Managing Authority of these schools to effect the necessary changes that can influence improved performance.
The Ministry strongly encourages the Managing Authorities of all schools to take an in-depth look at their individual school reports and to conduct a comprehensive analysis of their results with a view to strengthening and improving their students’ performance.
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Contact Person: Ms. Maud Hyde
Chief Education Officer
Ministry of Education

Math is also a problem area. Math in general is not hard. For a student to understand math the teacher has to know how to bring it across.

To me Math has always been easy, i was fortunate enough to have excellent techers in Math all through primary and secondary schools. It was when i started doing Calculus in Junior College thats when i started to hate math because the teacher couldn't teacher it so that we can get an understanding of it. Sad to say, i got my first ever "D" in any math class i took.

The point is, a teacher needs to know how to bring across math to the students so that the students can get an understanding of the material, if the teacher cannot bring across it, the students or most students will not do will, and will continue to do so until their teaching methods are changed.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

Students keep doing poorly in English.

Is is hard to teach English/Grammer is glass? I never liked English in school, but now i find myself writting pretty well.

So what is the problem as to why students do poorly in English. One this is for sure, Teachers and Students alike are not speaking correct and propler English in the classrooms. 98% of the time, it's broad kriol. thats the problem.

For our Belizean Children to start to do well in English, it must be enforced that all teachers and students speak proper and correct English in class. (and i don't mean that american accent bullshit).

Belize Christian Academy out in Belmopan, all teacher and students speak English in class, Belize Elementry all teachers and students speak English in class. so why can't all the other primary school?

not only in Primary schools, but starting at PreSchool.

You start speaking English to the students and force the students to reply in English, you will start seeing that English paper grade starting to improve.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."

GOB bears the primary responsibility for the quality of education that our students receive simply because government is the primary factor in any social equation, and has the regulatory authority as vested by the constitution.
GOB spent a lot of money, (incurring a lot of debt in the process), to expand the educational infrastructure. Literally hundreds of additional classrooms were built, new schools were added (three new multi-million dollar TVET schools were just recently completed), hundreds more teachers were added, and at the primary school level, the percentage of children NOT attending school was lowered by more than two-thirds.
The recurrent expenditure total alone of the 2006/07 public sector budget is $115,000,000. Capital outlays will cost another $5,000,000 plus. If you include financial support to other educational services targeted at youth such as Youth For The Future, Youth Development Services, National Youth Cadet Corps, 4-H, REAP, YWCA, YMCA, HELP, HANDS, etc. as well as services that are education related such as library services, literacy programs, health education, National Committee for Families and Children, Non-Traditional Training for Women, Schools Canteen Association, Schools buildings maintenance, scholarships, study leave, workshops, conferences, and seminars, tuition, travel and accommodation assistance you realize that GOB spends approximately $150,000,000 on education generally - or roughly a fifth to a quarter (twenty to twenty- five percent) of the national budget on education.
How does this compare to other countries? What responsibility do our teachers (who demonstrated for the last portion of a three-part raise) bear in all this?
What portion of our national debt is money we borrowed for education? Should we borrow more since your conclusion appears to be that it is a problem we need to throw more money at?
My conclusion is that we've spent close to $1 Billion dollars on education over the last eight years, and the progress we have made is incremental in the short term, but will be great in the long term.
Before PSE there was BNSE, the Belize National Selection Exam which served as a national primary school leaving exam. The experts say that comparing the results of the two is futile because of the way they were graded and what were their objectives.
The PSE has had its hiccups but lost amongst all the uninformed attacks is that the exam has had to be tweaked, modified and adjusted a couple of times, and it has taken the school system a couple of years to adjust to it in terms of their curriculum and the way the students are taught. This is the sixth PSE, which means that we're now seeing the students who have been taught according to a more PSE targeted curriculum for most of their primary school careers. This year's results is actually better than last years, albeit not by much.
The onus is on the schools, methinks, to do a better job of preparing students. One of the things that PSE was designed to do was to measure both students and schools performance.
My nephew got 78 overall, even though I consider him an indifferent student. He always does just enough to pass. My neighbours' son failed. His parents take little or no interest in his education, or so it seems to me. The kid could do much better if somebody took an interest and helped to give him a more structured environment and enforced the discipline of doing his school work.
Sure GOB bears some blame, but not all. At least GOB can point to what it has done.
I don't think that it is all a matter (or lack thereof) of resources either. At some point we started collectively to sneer at "book" education, and allow television to educate our kids. Some where and at some time we made teachers babysitters and day care attendants rather than educators. We took away their power to discipline, and over 80% of our teachers are female. (And at times it seems that the few men left in the profession are gay). What part does all that play in the equation senor?

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

Nobody said it was an easy job, I am sure it has never been easy. Hey if that’s how you see it then that’s fine. I see it as an indicator or measurement and the results are not good. Funny how you guys see the problems but can’t solve them, the expansion you described can be solved or the effects can be minimized if there was proper funding. So again we come to that road of having a high debt, rocked with financial scandals and at the end of the day not having enough.

I am sure the teachers are doing thier best with what they have and the country is lucky to have dedicated educators that are willing to come out of retirement to fill in. I would be even more pissed if my mother had to come out of retirement to pick up GOB’s slack.

These things mean something to me.

an all-time low. What is your basis of and for comparison?
The average score on the PSE was 57%. The pass/fail grade is 60%. The exam has only been around for a few years, so what are you going to compare it against?
There are more primary school students than ever before partly due to population increase and the GOB's massive expansion of the school system. Schools are not supposed to turn away students regardless so schools end up with students who years ago would have dropped out.
My mother, at 71 years of age, and who's been teaching since she was 16 years old, was drafted into service and is the principal of a rural primary school.
Just about everyone sits the exam regardless of ability and capability. When I was going to primary school, there were certain students whom the schools' teachers and principals would not allow to sit the high school entrance exams or the government scholarship exam which served as the Primary School Leaving exams. They didn't bother because they knew those students would not do well.
So this is how you go about proving that the level of education is at an all-time low? You really do want to use the results of a national primary school leaving exam that hasn't been around for more than a couple of years?

"On the internet nobody knows you're a dog!"

Shock me out of this world.. thought the poor kid would get under 50.

Well the little fucker owes me... for all the times I helped him with homework and teach him stuff that someone in std 3 should have known.

I always wondered if it was the school that was not teaching basic stuff or the poor kid was slow...

For some reason the rural primary schools tend to do the worst in these types of exams and I wonder if the supervision of these schools is overlooked... Who ensures that the curriculum is being followed in the villages? Are they like mini-kingdoms? do what they want? are the teachers properly trained? are the principals qualified? do the teachers even care? the average for the exam was 50%???? did the students only learn/memorize only half of what was teached to them? did they waste 3 of the six years that they went to primary school? damn.. lots of questions...

Big up NEKO!!! You did better than expected....REALLY!!!

CORN: THE GREAT

left right and FUCKING center, hahahaha
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I was asked to provide proof that our education standards is at an all time low. Ok, I don't have proof but we do have indicators.

Glenn, you better stop ask for proof cause you getting it, left, right and center or is it left, center, right, or is it right, center, left...

Well im proud to say my neice got Three A's and a B on the PSE......i know..runs in the blood...hehe...

as to teacher thing...ur right yellow my Mom has been teaching for well over 40 years and still going strong.....shes one of the few who actually loves her job and the kids, over the years I can recall her taking money from her own pocket (as many still do) to buy supplies for class and feeding some kids during lunch because there was nothing for them to eat at home. When she tells u some of the things shes seen over the years, it breaks your heart. Kids molested by other family memembers, one meal per day at home, all types of abuse....and we wonder how come some kids are all screwed up....there is so much more going on there than is seen...Sad...truly sad....

"this is not revenge but punishment"