(DNO) – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has called for serious reform of the current school curriculum in Dominica.
Skerrit says he is concerned that the current curriculum is too Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) driven and he doesn’t think that the government should delay the curriculum reform any further.
“I have a concern; we still have 5 hours at the school and we have increased in a dramatic way the number of subjects which we offer to students,” he said during his Annou Palay radio programme over the weekend. “I mean how do we propose to overcoming these things?”
He continued, “Because I mean physical education was something that you did, it was physical, you had sports day and you did the exercise, you played sports and you engage yourself in physical activity, but we have moved away from this and now we are using a textbook for physical education because it is now a subject at CXC.”
The Prime Minister is of the view that indicated that, in a classroom setting, apart from a break, students sit on a chair for 5 hours and are not allowed enough opportunities for group work or interaction.
“And so it is very competitive and it places in my view an added burden on students and parents, to see whether their children can do well as compared to others rather than everybody in an environment where they can all succeed,” the Prime Minister contends.
“In my view time is of the essence,” he opined.
Prime Minister Skerrit urged the ministry and the nation to move with haste in revisiting the curriculum.
“Because I am concerned that we might be spending a lot of money and not many people are benefiting or more people can be benefiting from this going forward,” he suggested.
He is also advocating for the introduction of civics at schools.
“I have been talking in the public domain for years about civics,” he pointed out. “Many students do not know their rights and their responsibilities as citizens; they do not know anything about nationhood.”
“Something that is so important as knowing what a citizen is and nationhood and the basic and fundamental rights…what is taking us so long to get this going?” the prime minister asked.