‘Raise your levels of performance’

Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations, says Permanent Secretary for Education Iowane Tiko.

He told the leaders of Catholic Schools during the Catholic Education Board Conference, “As leaders, please don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance, but raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, your teachers, and especially your students and do what is necessary to make it a reality.” The Ministry of Education has instituted reforms to raise the standard of students, teachers and schools. Mr Tiko said performance stood out like a ton of diamonds and non – performance can always be explained away. “As parents and teachers, you may need to get your teachers to focus on the specific academic needs of each student as when the subjects follow a focused agenda, it will provide students with the ability to achieve in a particular subject matter,” he said. “We as leaders will need to motivate our teachers to show passion for the subject they teach and this will help encourage student achievement.” Mr Tiko introduced the term, “Strategic Tutoring”, in the Catholic Education Board conference which will have, for example, a teacher working with a student who struggles with reading who may focus on comprehension, definition and sounding of words. “As leaders, we have been through the same stages as our children, so it is our responsibility to try and recall some of the strategies we were taught by our teachers,” Mr Tiko said. Edited by Manasa Kalouniviti