Primary curriculum overloaded

THE EDITOR, Sir:

IN JAMAICA’S primary schools, a curriculum overloaded with content is one of the main reasons why so many children fail to perform satisfactorily.

The imperative of imparting factual information takes precedence over ensuring that children acquire necessary skills and attitudes. Too many children move up through the grades being unable to read, or reading well below their grade level. It must be frustrating for them to have little idea of what is going on, or to not see the point of what is being taught. It is no wonder they have behavioural problems.

The curriculum prescribes the topics to be taught week by week. No time allowance is made to check prior learning, or for review, or for testing, or for reteaching, if necessary. There is no flexibility in case of eventualities such as floods.

Was there any public scrutiny of the National Standards Curriculum by Jamaican stakeholders before it was introduced? Are all schools equipped to teach the curriculum?

One of the science activities for grade-four students is to capture images of flowers and then design and produce a multimedia presentation! Do all the teachers have the competencies to teach everything they are required to teach? Some of the topics in grade-four science will be taught again in high school. Why is it necessary to pack the curriculum with such topics at this stage?

FIRST PRIORITY

The first priority of primary schools should be to make sure that all students acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills. The content of the curriculum could easily be cut to allow teachers to have this as their main objective. What is cut from the curriculum could be given to the more able students as enrichment activities.

The more able students could also be recruited to assist in the teaching of students who are struggling, thus encouraging the spirit of volunteerism. HELEN WILLIAMS

P.O. Box 349 Montego Bay