Third Round of Curriculum Consultations Concludes

The Ministry of Education concluded its third round of consultations held with stakeholders across the country. The discussion was geared toward evaluating the effectiveness of the new national competency-based curriculum. The consultation tour was led by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Louis Zabaneh, and provided an outlet for teachers and educators to voice their concerns and suggestions on the implementation of the new curriculum. The team observed schools that have significantly advanced in their implementation and noted where other schools required additional support. Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca, says that so far, the initiative has been successful and his ministry continues to place focus on creativity and expressiveness that was lacking in the previous curriculum. 

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Technology: “If you look at the new national curriculum framework that we launched August of last year you will see that expressive arts is a critical component of that new curriculum so we’re insisting as a part of that curriculum that music education, art education, is a part of our primary school and secondary school curriculum so that we’re exposing our students at their earliest ages to creativity. You know as you all know even at the preschool level we can see the children being creative so we want to encourage that, we want to stimulate that and the new national curriculum framework does exactly that making sure that it is a requirement that at the primary school level and secondary school level we’re going to ensure that expressive arts is a fundamental component of the school curriculum.”