We have almost reached the end of another sitting of the regional Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and advanced proficiency examinations. Excited and hopeful parents and teachers already anticipate results. And jubilant TEENs will happily forget much of the information they spent the last month or so cramming.

Now, we do not seek to deride the subject areas currently being taught, but it is incumbent on us to recommend certain practical skills be included in the coming reforms of the Jamaican secondary education curriculum.

At the genesis of the idea of a new national assessment programme two years ago, there was a lot of talk of focus on higher order thinking skills rather than memorisation.

teenAGE believes that this reform should include a mandatory course (or courses) geared at teaching students certain practical skills before throwing them in at deep end of professional life.

A quick review will find students learning about the French and American revolutions, while simple and requisite areas such as civics, financial prudence, office courtesy, and even conflict resolution remain extra-curricular.

This, while students are forced to work towards high test scores and accept “because it’s on the syllabus” as the reason for having to learn a particular thing.

We have clearly accepted that we cannot teach theoretical subject matters in a vacuum and expect not only good pass rates, but social change. However, as we focus on improving the thinking processes of our TEENs with the National Assessment Programme,

teenAGE recommends that we pay due regard to the simple and practical as well.

Why should all students be taught things like matrices (Mathematics) and and be able find ways to sum and differentiate numbers but are not be taught the importance of saving money? What does it benefit a TEEN to understand and identify Mayan practices and symbols but be ignorant to office courtesy and etiquette. The intricacies of leaf veins are no more important than basic male-female interpersonal and sexual lessons?

Many students graduate high school not knowing how to send a professional email or do something as basic as writing a proposal. More than that, many high school graduates have never heard of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. Knowing that “I have rights” is not enough.

teenAGE recommends a compulsory course similar to that of personal development, perhaps supported by different private sector organisations who have programmes focused on different things that we have noted. Banks may be able to send experts to speak about financial planning and prudence. Office courtesy could be supported by various human resources departments.

Whatever the form that such a focus on life skills takes, one would hope that it is not narrow, muddled or treated as just another syllabus to complete, brushed aside in the wake of science, or mathematics.