Earlier this week, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) revealed that nearly 36,000 students who registered for the May/June examinations did not attend to write their exams.
Mr. Felmine said that while teachers want to see students succeed and grow, increasing pressure on them is making many of them less willing to face difficult challenges, including major examinations.
“I think this generation, this Gen Z and you know we have the Gen Alphas and thing coming up now. I think, you know, this generation, they don’t have an appreciation for education probably like what we did and our parents did. So we have to kind of reach them a different way. The reality is that different students face different problems based on the communities that they come from. My school is located in what they call a hot spot community or a community which has a lot of socio economic issues, but that is probably just one of the factors that my students face.”
Mr. Felmine noted that students face pressure not only from academic demands but also from challenges within their communities, adding that while the issues may differ from one school community to another, factors such as poverty continue to affect many students’ ability to succeed.
“We have to try to motivate them because, as I said what teachers are realizing is that this generation is different, it’s very different. We have to motivate them to want to learn. They are the generation of social media, they are the generation of the university of YouTube, you know. So how do we, as teachers, motivate these children to want to learn. And I think that is one of the hardest things as a new teacher or as a teacher teaching this generation is how do we motivate the children to learn and want to learn. That is the issue we have to focus on.”
Mr. Felmine advised parents to stop putting pressure on their children. He reminded them that CXC is only one exam, SEA is only one exam and these students have time to re-sit an examination or make something of themselves.