RASC yuh STILL ah dunce!!!!
'Scholarships for excellence'
By Aabida Allaham
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/_Sc ... 34023.htmlStory Created: Aug 26, 2010 at 12:47 AM ECT
(Story Updated: Aug 26, 2010 at 12:47 AM ECT )
THE Education Ministry will no longer be rewarding mediocrity and, as such, only those who have done exceptionally well will be able to qualify for full and open scholarships, Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh said yesterday.
"We must not reduce our standards to give national scholarships and open scholarships and, upon my examinations yesterday, it indicated that
we were giving scholarships to students who received grade twos at some of the examinations. Personally, I have a difficulty with that. We must not reward mediocrity. We must reward excellence and, therefore, I urge all our students to move to excellence," he said.
He made the statements while addressing 43 teachers who graduated from a financial literacy workshop at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago in Port of Spain yesterday. (See Page 10)
Last year, 235 pupils received national scholarships. This year, however, Gopeesingh said he intends taking a note to Cabinet to discuss the preliminary examination results and to make some determination on the scholarship recipients.
As for Gopeesingh's preliminary examination of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) results, he said, "At the national level, we find that mathematics has been one of the weaker areas in the elementary school process, and the result of the (Secondary Entrance Assessment) SEA clearly demonstrates that there is a need for tremendous improvement in mathematics at the primary school level, and if you are weak at the primary school level, it permeates into the secondary school."
Gopeesingh added that for every three children writing the SEA, one of them will fail to get a 50 per cent pass at the SEA examination; and analysis of the results had shown that some of the major weaknesses are in literacy and numeracy.
In addition to that, he said, we had lost four generations of individuals in this country through the education system, whereby for over 30 years, approximately 7,000 to 10,000 pupils in the primary school system have failed to get into secondary school on a yearly basis.
"So we have lost between 250,000 to 300,000 citizens who have not benefitted from a secondary education, and there is a high degree of functional illiteracy which we hope as a People's Partnership Government to ensure that we correct as quickly as possible," he said.
As for the financial literacy programme being introduced in schools through the efforts made by the Central Bank, Gopeesingh said he was pleased to know such an undertaking had been going on.
Launched in 2007, the programme's intent is to provide the public with knowledge for safeguarding their financial future. So far, approximately 81,000 pupils and 200 teachers have received training
with ah thread subject like that, when we see who is de op, its all down hill from there 
