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WHILE several state agencies claimed youngsters were already learning talents such as business skills within existing curricula, several members of a Parliament committee on Friday urged a more focussed teaching of skills relating to ICT, sports, visual and performing arts (VAPA), and tech/voc subjects.
The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights, Equality and Diversity – chaired by Dr Ibrahim Yunus Mohammed – met officials from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth Development and National Service, Association of Principals of Public Secondary Schools (APPSS), and National Primary Schools Principals’ Association (NAPSPA.)
Ministry of Education tech/voc curriculum co-ordinator Tricia Gilkes said primary-school pupils learnt entrepreneurship skills while doing agricultural science, while opportunities for learning entrepreneurship were also available in secondary school.
However JSC member Shamfa Cudjoe thought those tangential opportunities were inadequate.
"In 2023 we need something more focussed, more pointed."
She wanted a clear thrust in computer coding and entrepreneurial culture. She said it was insufficient to teach pupils agricultural science and hope they picked up some entrepreneurship within that.
"Prepare youngsters for entrepreneurship in this modern world."
Later on, APPSS first vice president David Simon urged a full revamping of technology which he viewed as ICT rather than traditional tech/voc subjects.
[caption id="attachment_1010901" align="alignnone" width="683"] David Simon -[/caption]
"The student that exists today is totally different."
"What place is there for Robotics? For AI (Artificial Intelligence)?" he challenged of the curriculum.
"We are not preparing a student for the next five years; We are preparing a new generation!"
Having grown up in a coastal town, Simon also made a plug for fishing and said in each community similar local skills/crafts could be identified and taught to pupils. Traditional skills could be taught alongside new trends in education, he urged, again citing robotics and AI.
On that note APPSS president Sharlene Hicks-Raeburn said she wished to make a plug for steel pan manufacturing.
Amid a clearly burdensome bureaucracy to get simple initiatives in schools, JSC member Hazel Thompson-Ahye suggested a school could source a person in the locale who could part-time teach a specific skill like needlework/embroidery and then pass her onto nearby schools in a pooling of efforts/resources.
JSC member Anita Haynes strongly disagreed, thinking schools should not be burdened with that responsibility. She also urged that any lessons to teach entrepreneurship theory should also be backed by practical opportunities for pupils such as in an apprenticeship scheme.
Thompson-Ahye backed her plug for teaching sewing skills by asking if a seeming predilection for nakedness at Carnival was due to a lack of seamstresses/tailors to sew costumes. She asked whether entrepreneurship lessons should merely teach pupils how to do a business plan or go deeper to teach such things as the legal requirements of a business.
"We want to know students are adequately prepared for entrepreneurship."
The committee heard a plethora of woes about trying to expand the teaching of sport in schools.
Hicks-Raeburn said any introduction of CAPE Sport into public schools needed a Cabinet note of approval plus details about the number of teachers allocated to teach this topic, among other things. "So it's not something you can do off the bat.
"Human resources are critical, so the Ministry of Education may need to develop a policy for additional staff for sports development."
Hicks-Raeburn lamented that the hiring of coaches posed challenges.
"The payment of coaches can be very laborious."
She said it could also be challenging to assess the qualifications presented by individuals offering themselves as coaches. Hicks-Raeburn suggested the creation of a ministry post of sports administrator plus an extra allocation of funding to recruit coaches to work with pupils during after-school hours.
 
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