by

Santosh Kumar Mahadeo, former director of Curriculum, Ministry of Education

One of the spearheads of the private sector?s disgruntlement with the ministry of Education concerns the prevocational stream. What ails this sector? Housed in state secondary schools for the sake of integration with mainstream secondary to boost the bruised self-esteem of children who have failed CPE twice, the prevocational stream has remained the ugly duckling that rectors, teachers and pupils of the mainstream sector have arrogantly disdained with a contempt typical of a competition-based ethic. The poor should not be treated with condescending pity. In fact this has been the base of a sector, which could have offered our education system a golden opportunity for research, authentic analysis of the poor child?s pedagogy and justification for the claim of being a caring nation.

Brain not brawn

Quality in education demands more brain than money. This country has believed that teaching children from disadvantaged homes constitutes a special professional effort for which the teacher needs greater remuneration. The pilgrimage of the prevoc sector has been arduous. From project schools to SSS vocational to prevocational, the journey has demonstrated successive governments? lack of thoughtful analysis. How has the prevocational sector suffered?

(a) It has never had a curriculum that fits the aptitudes of learners whose cognitive capacity has been blunted by years of meaningless exposure to an ineffectual system that has only helped to render them more and more indifferent.

(b) The teachers of the prevoc sector were never trained for children who pose serious psychological problems, problems of attention-deficit behaviours ? related problems compounded with a poor grasp of literacy and numeracy skills. Teachers of the Technical School Management Trust Fund with skills to teach technical subjects were unable to teach languages, mathematics, integrated science, environmental studies, Art and design when they were not prepared for it. They were made to adopt strategies of teaching through activities in line with the learning by doing philosophy.

?We should not expose prevoc pupils to arrogant products of a system, which believe that intellectual excellence is the birthright of a few.?

In pedagogy, there is nothing more successful than the method over which the teacher has mastery and through which the whole class can effectively learn. Prevocational students are a group of unfortunate victims of an elitist pedagogy at primary level that has excluded them. Our teachers are in the majority people who lecture ? at all levels. An activity-based pedagogy makes it incumbent upon the teacher to prepare teaching aids, mobiles, bring to the class objects from the lived experienced of the learner and engage the learner in activities. Unfortunately, this recommended method failed because schools could not provide the materials to mount activities in class.

(c) School leaders treated prevoc students as pariahs, unwanted intruders who suffered the abuse of an arrogant and indifferent management. Teachers were demotivated because as TSMTF officers, they felt inferior to education officers. The poor cognitive ability of the children further demotivated them. The school was split into two bodies with one head.

(d) Though teachers in state and private schools use Creole, they did not know how to adopt a pedagogy of transition from the vernacular to the foreign language. This became a mockery of the pedagogy of bilingualism. The child who heard all explanations in Creole had to write European languages. This is what has led to massive failure even after three years in the prevocational stream. In 2002, an inspection report on the assessment of achievement levels in the prevocational sector revealed that children after three years did not go beyond an achievement surpassing Standard Four at primary level. This further explained the huge rate of drop-out, failure or deregistration for the NTC foundation course that would admit them to NTC 3.

The private secondary schools have been of immense help when Form VI schools were converted into Forms I to VI schools. In fact more and more private colleges welcomed prevoc students with appetizing grants.

(1) Rs 25,000 for the infrastructure of each class.

(2) Rs 5,500 per class per month.

(3) Per capita grant at the rate of 1.5 of mainstream students ? and other grants that the PSSA generously gives to managers.

Teachers of private schools have always complained that they never obtained materials, pedagogical equipment like Bristol sheets, markers, etc. that help make learning more productive. The ministry has upgraded the instructors turned teachers of the TSMTF to the status of education officers. In fact, we have been able to do more with money and other material incentives for managers and teachers than we should have done for those children of lesser gods.

? What quality reforms for the prevoc sectors?

1. We need to mount a curriculum that can exploit the potential of these children who have an intelligence that has not been explored by means of relevant pedagogy.

2. The state should invest in workshops to teach middle-level skills - cabinet making, electronic repairs, skills related to construction, tourism, land-based oceanic industry, etc. This does not mean that these children do not need to develop cognitive skills. No technical stream can be indifferent to the cognitive domain.

Literacy and numeracy have to be taught by teachers who are trained. We should not run away with the feeling that any graduate can teach anybody. Our elitist mind has made us think that the best teachers are those that produce laureates. In fact, laureates make themselves. They are kind enough to make their teachers participate in their victory. The best teachers are those who can lead a failing child to the pinnacle of victory. Where are these rare birds? They are created, not born. Teaching is not ceaseless talking.

3. We need a reasoned, well-informed use of the vernacular leading to an easy apprenticeship in English and French. But let us first of all train our teachers to learn Creole and its script, be it grafilarmoni or any other. Let teachers be trained the "pedagogy of convergence" that will ensure the transition. From mother tongue to a foreign language. Let teachers be exposed to the pedagogies of bilingualism.

4. Unless we know how to manage integration, we should not expose prevocational pupils to arrogant products of a system, which believe that intellectual excellence is the birthright of a few. Even if curricula are different, children of both streams can work together in extra-curricular activities, play together, participate in co-curricular activities like life-skills development. The school should learn to get down the horse of elitism and become a democratic, egalitarian platform.

We have in ZEP schools and the prevocational stream a rare example of affirmative action in favour of the poor. During the recent SADC conference on poverty, only passing mention was made of education. We cannot fight the battle against poverty with blunt tools and broken weapons. We need to rethink the prevocational sector to rehabilitate the poor if we want them to participate in the creation of wealth and become responsible citizens. Hitherto, we have adopted a condescending attitude. We must respect the 11-year compulsory schooling and invest these children with skills that will enable them to work or follow the NTC 3 IVTB course and, in the context of lifelong learning, allow them to take a diploma from one of the Institutes of vocational and technical education (IFET) that the ministry wants to set up.