PRINCIPAL OF THE Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI),?Sir Hilary Beckles, wants a higher pay grade for maths and science teachers in order to address failing grades at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate level.
“We know that there is a fundamental challenge before us in the transmission of mathematical knowledge and skills to our young generation,” he said.
“So few of our teachers in the Caribbean are mathematics graduates because the private sector [has] pulled them out of the school system and persons with mathematics and physics degrees were going into the accounting, banking and insurance sectors to make a better living for themselves but, as they did so, the first consequence of that was the collapse in the performance in the science subjects.”
Speaking at the launch yesterday of UWITube, an online programme initially designed to teach mathematics, in the main conference room of the UWI?administration building, Sir Hilary said it might be time for teachers of those subjects to earn more money in order to keep them teaching. (CA/BGIS)
