New school year to stress on early childhood cycle |22 January 2008

This is aimed at strengthening education imparted at this level so that students acquire a solid foundation on which they will later pursue their primary and secondary education.

This was said by the principal secretary for Education, Jeanne Simeon, in an interview with the media on Friday, ahead of the start of the new school year.

In the interview, PS Simeon also addressed a series of issues related to the new academic school year, and the Ministry of Education’s continued effort to get better results out of the students, as well as enhance the performances of schools across the country in general.

She said that by reinforcing on early childhood education, the Ministry of Education is seeking to bridge the obvious link between early childhood, primary and secondary education, so as to further guarantee that the correlation between the different stages of education is given proper and earnest priority.

She explained that the reinforcement is an integral part of the School Improvement Programme (SIP), designed to inspire better results from students and enhanced school performance all round during the school year.

Detailing how early childhood education will be reinforced, PS Simeon said that a new section, the Early Childhood Education Section, has been set up within the Ministry of Education to coordinate and guide the way forward for early childhood education in all schools, through the provision of training and other support for teachers who teach at that level.

Secondly, a profile of the competencies that a pupil should have acquired after each accomplished year of their childhood education has been prepared and presented to schools, in order to compare what students have actually picked up during the school year, the PS said.

A profile of students will also be kept and accompany them through the different school years up to Primary 2, so that teachers will at all time be able to match their capability with that of a typical student of their age, as detailed by the profile.

PS Simeon also spoke of the success accomplished by the auxiliary programme that was launched three years ago, noting that the ministry is looking to keep and enforce the programme, as it provides teachers with much needed assistance with their classes which most of the time consist of over 20 students per class. 

Other actions being undertaken to improve performances of students and schools alike for this academic year include the introduction of an end of cycle assessment, whereby groups of students will be tested in accordance with their grade every year, with the objective of detecting their limitations so as to improve on them.

The ministry is also striving to meet its obligation and improve on support to schools through teaching and learning resources, by ensuring that all schools are provided with necessary and adequate equipment and supplies to accomplish all courses on their programmes of study.