No benefit in extending school term

[Karl]

No benefit in extending school term

Thursday, December 09, 2010

HENRY-WILSON... she started the “extend-the-term” fad after Hurricane Ivan in 2004
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HENRY-WILSON... she started the “extend-the-term” fad after Hurricane Ivan in 2004

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IT was announced a few weeks ago that the school term had been extended by two days. It was scheduled to end on December 15, but will now end on December 17. The Ministry of Education decided this because of the days missed when Tropical Storm Nicole passed by. But unless the students missed classes for half of a term or more, what sense does it make?

We all know that very little learning takes place in the last week before the Christmas holidays, because of the so-called "Christmas fever". What is a waste of learning time is the easy way in which students can be suspended now that caning is abolished. Some students take suspension as a holiday. In any case, teachers who have made plans to go overseas on a given date will go anyway.

One day while attending Jamaica College, I was in fourth form geography class and it was coming to the end of the Easter term. Our teacher - one of the few women teachers of that era at JC - suddenly asked the class, "When is end of term?" "Week after next Wednesday, Miss", was the reply in unison.

Then one boy asked, "Will end of term be half-day, Miss?" (Everybody knows that "last day" is half-day). She responded by asking: "Are you kidding? Which teacher was going to stay?" And that was in the 1960s before education minister Andrew Holness was born.

That was the day when I learnt that end of term is half-day, not out of charity for students but because everyone, including the principal, wanted to go home. From that I guessed that if it were up to some teachers the holidays would be longer, but the Education Code stipulates a certain number of school days per term.

If the exam passes are not good islandwide it can be because of demotivated teachers complaining about low pay, even when attendance is 100 per cent. This "extend-the-term" fad was started by former education minister Maxine Henry-Wilson after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. But there was no such extension of the school term after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and I doubt that it affected the exam results.

Although there were no hurricanes in Jamaica in the 1960s, there were floods and epidemics like chicken pox, dengue fever and Hong Kong Flu that resulted in students missing classes. But at no time was the school term extended, yet students passed exams.

I recall the chicken pox epidemic at JC in 1967. I did not catch it because I had it as an infant, and chicken pox, like measles, is one of those diseases that you get only once. But 1967 was also the year of the best examination passes in my time at JC (1964-71) and one of the years when a JC student won the Jamaica Scholarship.

In April the teachers had a "sick-out" and the government announced that the mid-term holiday was cancelled to make up for lost time. I disagreed, wrote as much and someone who thought I was wrong wrote a letter about it. As it turned out, the students got more than the half-term holiday because of the state of emergency and curfews. Then in September we read that the examination results were better than last year's and I certainly felt vindicated.

So why do we keep extending school terms whenever a few classes are missed? Is it because a world financial institution has either lent or granted some money on condition that there should be a certain number of school days in the term? If that is right, then the minister of education should say so and I will understand. I know that when the comparison is made with other countries with regard to examination passes, the comment is made that in those countries more time is spent by students in the classrooms.

But does Jamaica need more examination passes? What we really need are courses for the development of character and also socialisation skills because of the history of poor family life in Jamaica. There are some Jamaicans with doctorates who are immature and some of them cannot make a proper moral decision. Is this what we want out of our education system?

I believe that the education system should address this until we can build up proper family units in Jamaica. If we want to improve the economy, this is the place to start, not in simply extending school terms. And I believe that our education system is far too examination-based as the end-all and be-all of a proper education.

I further contend that countries anywhere in the world that have stronger economies than ours is not because their adult workers spent more days in school when young. It is because their system of values and attitudes are different which has its roots in families.

Some students go overseas to their parents for the Christmas where they are fitted out with new clothes and given money for their needs for the rest of the year. So school terms should not be extended just because a few days were missed. Holidays are necessary for the students to be able to study and pass exams during term time.
ekrubm765@yahoo.com

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz17mig0qCm

[Peter R]

There needs to be a minimum number of days in a school setting in order to cover the curriculum, but I agree that extending it a couple of days may have no benefit; the important thing for teachers 9with respect to their delivery) is what they do during the time when they are in school. For students this is also important, but IMO it is more important what they do outside school hours. A motivated student (learner) doesn't need to be in a classroom, nor does (s)he necessarily need a teacher but a guide who will keep him/her on track.

Getting students "motivated" is the challenge... if they are, more than half the battle is over.