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Something about Schools
Terminology. Primary school includes 8 grades: Infant-1 and 2 and
Standard 1-6. Some students start early, but most begin school at 5.
Almost all of the primary schools are run by some church or group of churches, and include “scripture” or “catechism” as part of the curriculum. The curriculum is robust, with solid academics in the higher grades, since students have to test to go on into “college” – (i.e. High School) The test is
competitive, and students who fail to get in the best schools will test to get in a school that’s not quite as highly rated. Then the colleges are rated (certainly informally, if not formally) on the basis of how well their students do on the CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) exams given at the end of each school year. The
CXC exams ensure that the quality of education throughout the Caribbean is high.
Like the “public schools” in Britain, the schools in Belize charge their students. (See my discussion of “public schools” here.) The government subsidizes the school by paying a portion of the tuition, and a portion of teacher salaries.
CCC.
Corozal Community College (CCC) is a four year high school. The grades are called “Forms”, numbered first thru
fourth, and they correspond to Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior in the States. At almost every school in the country, the students wear uniforms. At CCC, the boys wear khaki pants and white short-sleeved shirts, and snap-on epaulettes whose colour indicates their class. Girls wear white dresses with a tie
in their class colour. The
colours:
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Blue
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Fourth Form (Seniors)
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Red
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Third Form (Juniors)
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Gold
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Second Form (Sophomores)
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Green
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First Form (Freshmen)
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At other schools, students may wear dark green or blue pants, girls may wear khaki skirts, primary girls wear pinafores. The students look remarkably clean when they go to school, and the boys are typically disheveled when school is out. The girls, being girls, generally look very neat!
As you can see in the pictures, the girls wear white (usually high) sox and oversized “cartoon” shoes.
The classes are pretty basic – not many frills like US high schools. English (first and foremost), Maths, and Science, have always been required for passage to the next grade, and now Social Studies have been added. Everyone takes Spanish (actually Spanish grammar, because most of the students learn
Spanish at mother’s knee) and Scripture. <surprise!!!> The electives: either Home Economics or Music. If you don’t want to cook, you take music! I liked to say that there were three types of students in my music classes:
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Those who wanted to study music and be professional musicians.
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Those who wanted to learn music to entertain friends and family.
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Those who didn’t want to cook under any circumstances. <grin>
The college is subsidized by the government, which pays 70% of the tuition the first year that a student takes a form. When the student has to repeat a form, they must pay 100%. They usually repeat because they flunked English or Maths.
CJC. Corozal Junior College is a regular junior college (in the same sense that the term is used in the US) and it grants an Associates Degree for two years of work. The grade is called “Sixth Form’ to agree
with the British school system, but the classes are free form, much like those at a US Junior College. The students do not wear uniforms or respond to school bells or buzzers. They are in sixth form for two years or longer if necessary. CJC is trying to conform to US collegiate standards so that its students can transfer
credits into other (mostly American) schools.
University. The University College of Belize has now changed its name to University of Belize and its location from Belize City to Belmopan (well, some of it moved.) It is the highest seat of education in the
country, offering Batchelor and Master’s degrees. Teachers formerly rewarded with higher pay for higher education, are now being required to get degrees. This will ultimately swell the registration at UB if it doesn’t actually improve the quality of education.
To see thousands of pictures of CCC, look here.
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