School curriculum facing future changes
(CNS): By 2021, the Cayman Islands education curriculum will be changed, teachers will have an increase in salary and the John Gray High School will be built, Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly promised teachers during the annual education professionals welcome last week. It will be another year before teachers see the much touted pay rise to a minimum of $5,000 per month and a new curriculum is rolled out. As she welcomed new and returning staff back to school, the minister said Year 6 exam results for students moving from primary to secondary this year had shown an increase in performance above the expected level by 10% in maths and 4% in English. But Year 11 exam results showed a decrease of 2% in English and 4% in maths.
Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly
With lots of work for educators still to do, the minister expressed concern about the current school curriculum. Spearheading the curriculum review is Education Council Chair Dan Scott, who warned that young people who are not equipped with the skills to read and write will not find a job, even at entry-level positions, and will miss out on Cayman’s economic miracle.
“It’s all about their education. Working together, we must inspire our children to have the skills to dream and pursue their dreams,” Scott said, stressing the importance of having good teachers to inspire the upcoming generation.
He said the British system was a point of reference for a new curriculum and a report is expected from the transition committee in the first quarter of next year.
Category: Education, Local News, Politics
Perhaps you should relocate to Bulgaria!!
So will the Assistant Teachers and the Special Support Aides be getting a raise as well? Seems only fair.
No, because assistant teachers and SSAs are unqualified, have no degrees and are recent high school graduates asipiring to be teachers (words from a parent and a teacher). Made me wonder if my years of teaching, degree in education and masters was of no value because i am an assistant teacher.
The aim is to raise standards from extremely crap to moderately crap. As lon as they exclude middle class expat kids nothing will change.
It will always be crap when people like Ju Ju who know nothing about education are involved. Her agenda is to shove her bible down everyones throat and assume that will somehow deliver us from poor hiring oractices, poor teaching, piss poor leadership and absent parents.
Does this include UCCI?
That dumping ground still open?
UCCI is on the brink of greatness. Do not blame or confuse poor leadership and politricks with dedicated past and present faculty.
Just wait until you see the graduation ceremony. We have alot of new things planned. Then you will eat your own words. UCCI is going places and expanding the future of the cayman islands.
Yes ucci I going places with forginers.
UCCI does not need it. They have a powerful senior team that is on the ball when securing funds for their many high quality projects.
This is the year when UCCI will begin to be known as a world class institution that will attract even more funds. They will be swimming in money and everybody on the island will want to attend classes at UCCI. UCCI will have to turn them away.
Who else is in the education council? Are there any teachers or parents represented? Just wondering as it might be useful to see their perspectives. Especially teachers who are in the classroom and knows what’s working etc.
CNS: The members are listed in the CNS Library here, with the reasons the ministry gave for their inclusion.
Not one parent or classroom teacher.
Nearly everyone on the list is a parent. You seeing straight?
If they are getting pay raise then less weeks off for vacation….they have nearly 3 months off work a year!
Dude, you’re not quite understanding this. If you work in a school, you NEED the time away from the students.
You could double the salary of most teachers, but if you reduced their vacation time, they’d leave the profession in a heartbeat.
You stick to commenting on things that you have an inkling about.
Don, took the stupid pills this morning? A bit daft, aren’t you? Kids need time away from school, and teachers need time away from kids. That’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s been, that’s the way it will always be.
Asshat! Do you think the lessons prepare themselves? If you think the teachers have the full three months off without working, then you are seriously deluded.
Another thing you fail to take into account is, teachers often take work home to mark and plan and are often up at ungodly hours of the night doing work that they have no time to do in school. So the “3 months off work” that you seem to be begrudging us is supposed to compensate for that. Teachers work while much of the world sleeps at night.
With that kind of attitude, what quality education will we be producing at the public schools? A lot of these teachers still work on their vacation time!! Don’t you know that education is the pillars to any society? Great job done to the Minister of Education, my hat off to you!!
Don, this is somewhat harsh, look at our MLA’s they don’t even WORK 3 months a year and no-one even notices if they fall asleep whilst in the Assembly.
Teachers now gets payed plenty more money than what they gets in their countries that’s why teachers from all over the world wants to come to Cayman. If one is payed more they are not nrcessary going to do a better job. Need
things in place to see that they
are doing a good job of teaching and not there just for thr monry.
Check your facts!
School ended on June 30 and school management was back to work August 13, teachers were back to work August 20. That works out to 7 weeks not three months (12 weeks).
Students also get two weeks off at Christmas so is it that you want to teachers to just show up at school during the time there are no students to teach just to say they were at work?
No matter what they do or say to lead I astray..day by day…praise him over them.
They also need stricter policies when it comes to parental involvement in the child’s education and behavior. Don’t let parents off the hook so easily, when they tell off the teachers, who are trying to help a child excel.
The culture has to change where education and educators are once again respected for that to happen. Too often, schools are seen as a baby-sitting service by parents who are ill-equipped and/or unwilling to ‘deal’ with their children.
Good news for hard working teachers. Well done, Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly. This is something that has been long overdue. Our children is our future.
Also, looking forward to seeing more MALE Caymanian teachers 🙂
Would love to have more males in primary – but they must make decent living. Is there a raise for assistant teachers? Some have been in the system for years…used for anything and everything, with experience and expertise far exceeding many teachers. C’mon Juju…
In order for there to be more male Caymanian teachers, teaching in general needs to be regarded by the wider community as a respectable profession and not just the domain of women. Even though it’s 2018, you’d be surprised at the mentality of many in the community where that is concerned.
Yippee its great news for piss poor teachers. A pay rise not connected to performance.
Did she fall over into a lightshade AND a floral arrangement on the way to the stage?
At my granny’s house by the looks of it.
And yet nothing about the continued breach of Cayman’s human rights obligations to provide free primary and secondary education to all resident children. See Ponomaryovi v Bulgaria.
If you are waiting on that I suggest you go somewhere else. We can hardly afford to do that for our own. If you come here to play you will have to pay.
Read and write are your goals for our young people? Aren’t those goals a bit simplistic? I think that is accomplished by year 3.
Good grammer is one of the most important subjects on the planet! What are you talkin about?!
i am surprised they haven’t mentioned anything about the charter/ two tier schools.
Does Dan know that the current curriculum was a copy and paste from the English curriculum at the time? Verbatim in many instances.
But with the added Caymanisation by curriculum coordinator people in the Education Department such as James Watler and Marquiss McLaughlin, Desiree Charles and Joanna Clarke.
Nothing has ever been improved by “Caymanisatiom”.
I see you have intergrated well into the Cayman Society.
One does not have to regress to the mediocre.
Don’t remind us, 12:19. Please.
No, it used to be based on the English curriculum and that got traded for that of Trinidad. No surprise at the result.