TOUSAN Royal and Thaddeti Tulloch are satisfied that they have found the solution to Jamaica’s runaway failure rates at Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Math and English.

And according to the two, electronics and computer engineering graduates of the University of the West Indies (UWI), it’s a simple fix — using multi-sensory, web-based tools in which the student, not the teacher, drives his/her own learning.

To that end, the youthful duo has designed and created a website — wgp-academy.com — which targets the new generation. “WGP Academy is the leading edge of education,” the site says. “The academy was created to awaken mankind to their innate brilliance and magnificence using [the] most advanced techniques

and strategies.”

In addition to computer technology, these include mind-mapping, which can teach one to read and digest a book in 20 minutes or less, and neuro-linguistic programming which taps into the way one learns and copies excellence strategies.

“There’s a lot of shifting in models and prototypes and strategies. We’re kind of melting away the conventional strategies and embracing the new, more efficient and more engaging methodology,” Tulloch said.

Royal, 26 and Tulloch, 30 were guests at the Jamaica Observer Press Club on Thursday where they showcased the website and explained why their system works.

“I’m hearing that we have students who leave fifth form and they can’t read. Why? Why? In one month, in one day, you can detect that if you set up an intelligent system such that you stream data… We have the solutions available to us, but we’re not using it, and I can understand probably if you’re not aware, but from my perspective, it is there and you’re just [ignoring it],” Tulloch said, taking at jab at the present education system.

“One of the main reasons students don’t pass exams is not completing the syllabus; it’s not even the resources. That is why we’re working on the syllabus and making sure it can be understood by students. If we address that, we’d realise that automatically (it would change),” he added, pointing out that half of the 40,000 students who sit external exams every year, fail.

“Forty thousand translated into, say, $2,000 for one subject means you have hundreds of millions of dollars just going through, going through,” he said.

Only 46 per cent of those who sat English language at CSEC this year passed, compared to 63.9 per cent last year. For Math, this year’s pass rate was 31.7 per cent, versus 33.2 per cent last year. Remedying the situation is not hinged on building more schools or on having well-stocked science labs,” Tulloch argued.

“The idea is not about creating new schools; it’s about improving the quality. And how do we improve the quality? We introduce intelligence, we introduce data streaming, and we introduce it real-time so that all the information that is currently laborious and devoid of computing power [will come alive],” Tulloch added.

The young man related a recent event in which representatives of the education transformation programme reportedly bemoaned the scarcity of funds to erect new schools, which were estimated to cost in the region of US$7 million.

“With $7 million I could transform [the education system],” he said, then explained: “For example, right now we say things like the labs at schools are not well equipped. Remember Biology? You had to read a textbook, blank, flat. You had to imagine how the things looked… [but] you could come here (to the WGP site), we could separate the systems, the skeleton, everything to the last minute detail. You can play with it real-time. That is the beauty of digital… We can create labs online, we can create resources. We can have one central lab so that everyone will have access.

Added Royal: “It’s such a simple solution to solve our high school failure rate.”

WGP, which means World’s Greatest People, has been up since 2009, but it is still under construction. Once complete, it will cover all 24 CAPE subjects and all the CSEC subjects which number about 30. Judging from Thursday’s demonstration, the syllabi will be interactive and enriched with videos, labs, and animated content. Two videos have been completed and made public so far, and the duo is currently working on 10.

“When complete, we should have about 4,000 videos… For some subjects there will be up to 300 videos,” said Royal.

Tulloch, a past student of Glenmuir High School, who studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the UWI’s St Augustine campus in Trinidad, is an RF engineer at Digicel.

Royal, a past student of Manchester High School and St Andrew High School for Girls, is part owner and project director of TeleComs Implementation Services. She also lectures in wireless broadband technology at UWI.

The two met while they both worked at Digicel and realised they shared a passion for Math and education generally. They became fast friends and soon set about translating subject syllabi for the web.

They did all the work themselves, from “the first full stop to the last comma. Everything”.

Their motivation?

“It’s a mere wanting to develop our nation and improve the human resources of our island,” they told the Sunday Observer.

Jamaicans, Tulloch insisted, “have the mindset, the intellectual skills set, the drive”.

Although incomplete, the website is growing in popularity and has received hits from far flung places like Australia, the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Singapore. It is also Google’s top result for several search keywords.

“If you have like 500-and-something search keywords in Google, so if you type in something like (Principles of Business) we’re number one listed. We’re listed

in Google for a lot of things,”

said Royal.

“In 2010, for a month we had like 180, 170 unique visitors. By the time we got to September of 2011, we had 1,300 and something unique visitors per month, and we didn’t advertise,” Royal bragged.

The duo is currently seeking sponsorship to accelerate the rate of production of the website, and with the use of smart phones and other technology, and the employment of high school and university students who are defacto au fait with said technologies, they are convinced they can keep production costs at a minimum.