The Ministry of Education, in conjunction with The College Board Advanced Placement (AP) Program hosted some 40 educators and administrators from public and private schools throughout The Bahamas to an AP workshop for guidance counsellors today at Aquinas College. The workshop was led by Brian Hartman, the Director of International K-12 Initiatives at the College Board, and it provided educators with the support and training needed to develop effective strategies for teaching AP courses.Administrators and AP coordinators interested in establishing or building and supporting an AP program were given an opportunity to learn and address questions about the program.
Currently, about 19 thousand high schools in 120 countries worldwide offer AP’s in 36 various subjects. In The Bahamas, Queen’s College and St. George’s High School (Grand Bahama), among a few others, have had great success with the AP program and educators from the two schools were asked to lead today’s training session.
Ultimately, AP classes are designed to prepare high school students for the rigors of college level work. Upon completion of AP subject classes, students can sit the $121.00 AP examination, which takes place every year in May. Mrs. Monique Hinsey, Scholarship Resource Centre Consultant for the Ministry of Education, states that “the ultimate goal of this partnership with the College Board is to serve the needs of our students by ensuring that they are exposed to 21st century best practices and to make sure that they perform just as well as students from any part of the world.” Hinsey further stated that she was grateful to the “Minister, Director and the Ministry of Education as a whole for embracing the partnership with the College Board and for understanding the urgency and need for improving the overall academic profile of our students, so that more of them can tap into greater scholarship opportunities.”
Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr. Makia Gibson, Deputy Director of Education for Curriculum and supervisor of the Anglican Central Education Authority (ACEA). Gibson stated that “Bahamian students need to be prepared to compete internationally and be exposed to as much international curriculum as possible. When we in The Bahamas say we are good, we must ask, ‘Good compared to what?’ We need to make sure that we are not only comparing ourselves to the best in The Bahamas, but the best in the world; pursuing the AP curriculum would be one way to compare ourselves globally and expose our students to a curriculum that is more rigorous than the BGCSE curriculum and additionally, get our students more prepared for university life.”
When Senior Mistress of C.C. Sweeting, Ms. Cherry Martin was asked if her teachers were ready to take on the rigors of the AP course, she stated that her teachers were “more than ready to begin teaching AP subjects.” She stated that almost a year ago, the school began their College Readiness Program, and eleven students are currently enrolled; the AP program is but another step the school is ready to take to prepare its students for tertiary education.” According to Gibson, teachers in the ACEA have been asking for a “different approach or an accelerated program that takes students beyond the BGCSE program” for some time now. He went further to state that the AP program provides the best option for those accelerated students who have completed their BGCSE’s in grades 10 and 11, but who can still benefit from a high school environment.
These initial AP training sessions are only the first step in the training process for Bahamian educators. Next week, highly qualified expert AP English and calculus training sessions will take place with subject teachers. Eventually, according to Hinsey, information sessions will be targeted at parents and students, to ensure that they too appreciate the benefits that the AP program can provide.
