With the perennial issue of poor pass rates for mathematics rearing its head once more in this year’s Caribbean Examination Council’s (CXC) suite of exams, the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) is calling for a revision in teaching methods for the subject, starting with an overhaul of the primary school syllabus.
President Rudy Lovell said that with students also underperforming in mathematics at the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (BSSEE), it was clear that students were not provided with the best foundation in the subject.
He argued that the primary school curriculum was too full, with the centric focus being on getting students to pass an exam in Class 4.
He argued that with a poor foundation in mathematics at primary school, the work of the teachers at the secondary school level was twice as hard.
(CM)