On December 2, I read a Gleaner editorial, which commented on the number of graduates of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in science and technology "Competitive economies demand of their workers, the ability to master technology and manipulate information."

Camperdown High School is not considered one of the top performing high schools, neither is it at the bottom. One can therefore use Camperdown as a typical high school. I would like to present a little bit of history which can be extrapolated in whatever direction to get a picture of the offerings and performances in our system.

In the late '70s and throughout the '80s and early 1990s, many schools found it necessary to stream the fourth and fifth forms into science, arts, business and technical classes. The driving force was comprehensive education and the 'everybody wants to do accounts' syndrome. The number of students opting to do science at Camperdown dwindled so much, that we had to put accounts as a subject in the science stream to attract students. We had two business streams, two technical streams, one arts and one science stream.

In the late 1990s, we allowed students to choose any subject to make up their total offerings, except mathematics and English which were compulsory. Typewriting was removed from the curriculum and all students in fourth and fifth forms were required to do computer literacy.

Importance of science

This course enabled students to write letters and prepare documents which had numeric data and pictures for presentations, and use the Internet as a tool for research. In addition, teachers were charged to 'sell' their subjects to the students and parents or become redundant. I also tried to educate the parents on the importance of science to development. The result, more students started to choose science subjects.

After the development of the ROSE 2 programme, we were invited to a seminar by some researchers. These researchers found that the students who perform best in the technical area, were the ones who performed best in, English, mathematics, science and the humanities. Armed with this knowledge and the fact that we have moved into a global economy, I again adjusted the offerings at fourth and fifth forms.

The students were now required to do mathematics, English language, one science subject, a foreign language and one from history, geography, social studies and religious education. The foreign language was the most difficult to sell to the students. I had to go to each of the 18 first, second and third forms myself. I had to engage them in lengthy discussions before they were convinced that it would benefit them.

Passing grade

Today, 32 per cent of the subjects with a passing grade at the CSEC level are science subjects. At the CAPE level, we had students sitting for 798 subject entries, with 702 having a passing grade. Of these 23 per cent were science subjects.

The student preferences at sixth form have also seen a shift in recent times. We are coming from economics and accounts being overwhelmingly the choice of more than half of the students, to the following order of preference, based on the number of students choosing them: sociology, mathematics, biology, accounts, physics, history, geography, management of business, chemistry, economics, literatures in English, GMED, French and Spanish.

One of the difficulties we had, was finding science and French teachers. We went from five groups of accounts students in fourth and fifth forms, to one group in each form. On the other hand, we now have at least two groups for each of the science subjects. Creative means had to be found since accounts teachers cannot be converted to science teachers. Happily, because we are now producing more graduates who go to UWI, we now have two physics, two chemistry and one biology teacher, who are past students. A few years ago when you placed an advertisement for a chemistry teacher, you might get one usually unsuitable applicant. Now there are enough to choose from. We also have three past students training to become French teachers.

In discussions with other principals, I have found that the shift to science is also a feature of other schools. It is therefore evident that we are all aware of the importance of science and technology in the development of a modern and competitive economy. We are also aware that we are mandated to have, 'contribution to nation building' embedded in our mission.

Optimistic

I am very optimistic about the future of science and technology at our universities, because we have more students leaving high schools with certificates of proficiency in science. Please remember that the University of Technology also offers degrees in engineering. This could account for the small number of students going to Trinidad. The need for reallocation of subsidies might not be necessary, if the shift to science continues to the tertiary level.

Cynthia P. Cooke is principal of Camperdown High School, Kingston. Emails may be sent to cookelp@cwjamaica.com