Wednesday, December 8, 2010

How Bunwaree Can Be Bold In the Next Few Days

By deciding to add a few chairs on average to each Form 1 classroom in January so that the impending CPE results don't condemn several thousands kids to one more year of boredom studying a grossly ill-designed curriculum. In the process he will make some real progress on his strategic goal to make our school system more efficient.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

He won't have enough money to buy those chairs dear......it's too late now....he could have used the 30.4 Million Rupees the HRDC(which is under his supervision)just spent!

He must also tell us how come he proposed(during last mandate) a new labour law that doesn't make any mention about suspension procedures to make sure procedural justice is safeguarded(see Torul Report).

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

The chairs may be there somewhere because pupil/teacher ratio in our secondary schools was reduced from 19 to 16 between 2000 and 2005 and cohort sizes are on the decline.

There is plenty of money.

Still, if the govt can't find any then I am sure most parents won't mind paying for the chair and the table of their kid because that would cost them less in the final analysis (stress, tuition money, loss of 1 year)...

Anonymous said...

I though we already had a World-Class education!

cote li ete ca l'autre bougre la? Ti p repete meme kichose dix fois!!

Anonymous said...

In honour of Mr World-Class-Education who didn't realise that, under the circumstances of heavy rainfall one needs to simply ask all head of schools to prevent anyone from leaving the school premises rather than leave and head off for home only to face danger and death, I would like to know if there are 'protocols'(emphasis added...hope the word rings a bell) about what to do if we lack chairs in school?

Schools are used as 'centre de refuge'during cyclones.....they are considered safe....now how ill-advised can people be by not asking students to stay IN school whilst we face flooding.

I dont think people realise how s..... or policy makers are in this country.

akagugo said...

"Boldness" and "Minister of Education" are two immiscible terms that should not even be juxtaposed in Dodoland: remember what they (the intangible thing named the 'establishment' here) did to Kadress some years ago... If Vasant keeps mentioning this IB thing, just imagine how he'll be treated by the demagogue tradeunionists turned (self-proclaimed) pedagogues

Anonymous said...

Don't mention Kadress for god sake, li encore p rode so boute la!

Anonymous said...

What if these unqualified students fail and have to repeat form one?

The Banker said...

Instead of adding chairs, it will be better to reduce the number of school hours so that students attend school on shift system, as 50% of teaching time is just waste of time due to the archaic way of teaching, more emphasis to be put on creativity, critical thinking exercise and arts instead of the boring text reading which most often does not lead anywhere apart from receiving a certicate which does not necessarily mean that you are fit to face life challenges and add value to one's existence

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@Anonymous Dec 9 17h09: I don't think there is a big difference of points or skill level between those that barely pass and those that barely fail. And if we make the curriculum/exam non-cumulative the problem should become even more manageable.

@The Banker: The shift system you are proposing will certainly produce better outcomes than the present configuration (not difficult to beat the current system). But we will probably need even more chairs unless the first batch of kids who finish at let's say 11h will not sit down at all till 14h30.

In any case the curriculum needs to be redesigned. Here are some thoughts on this.

Good to see you contributing positively to the debate.

akagugo said...

In South Korea, there are 'militia' on the look-out for preventing private tuition to be pursued beyond 10pm... or, if you prefer military time - 22:00.