Sometimes a Mathematics grade is more than a number.
Sometimes, 12% is a warning. It can represent a child who has fallen behind, a classroom in which she has stopped asking questions, a family that does not know where to turn, and a widening gap between what a learner needs and what she is able to grasp.
Dr. Karen Abrams, Founder and Executive Director of STEMGuyana and an advocate for technology and STEM education, encountered such a case when a grandmother approached her about her granddaughter, a secondary-school student who had received 12% in Mathematics for an entire school term. The educator and Guyana’s STEM poineer shared the story in a recent Kaieteur News’ column, titled: From 12% to 60%: What One Learner taught us about Guyana’s mathematics crisis. Rather than viewing the grade simply as failure, Abrams saw an opportunity to understand what had gone wrong and determine what could be done to help the learner recover.
The child had already attended after-school lessons but remained significantly behind. More troubling, according to Abrams, was what had happened psychologically. The learner had become so ashamed of not understanding that she stopped asking for help.
“She did not raise her hand and announce to a room full of other children that she did not know something they seemed to know. She simply remained lost.”
Abrams believes this is part of Guyana’s Mathematics challenge that deserves greater attention. A poor grade is visible. Silence is not. A failing examination can be recorded, but a child quietly losing confidence in her ability to learn rarely appears in an education statistic.
Abrams said international research has linked Mathematics anxiety with poor performance, underscoring the danger of allowing academic difficulties to become a source of shame and disengagement.
Her response was practical. Pathway Online Academy waived its GY$5,000 monthly fee and enrolled the learner.
But Abrams and her team also recognised that simply putting a struggling child in front of a computer would not guarantee improvement.
Students can click through online material, repeatedly take quizzes until they discover the answers and appear active on a platform without mastering the underlying concepts. Abrams said her organisation observed these behaviours and redesigned the programme around learner engagement and progress monitoring.
Artificial intelligence was incorporated into the programme, but Abrams stresses that AI is not the solution by itself.
The learner remains at the centre of the intervention.
The programme also placed a modest responsibility on the child’s grandmother: check the parent platform each day and review the progress report.
She did not have to become a Mathematics teacher or sit beside her granddaughter for hours. She simply had to know whether the work was being done and whether progress was being made.
The results offered a powerful indication of what targeted support and sustained engagement can achieve.
The following term, the learner’s Mathematics grade rose from 12% to 38%.
By the end of the school year, it had reached 60%.
Abrams, however, is careful not to claim that the programme alone produced the 48-percentage-point improvement.
“One child’s story does not prove that Pathway Online Academy caused a 48-percentage-point increase.”
School, teachers, maturity, home circumstances and other factors could also have contributed.
But the experience has strengthened Abrams’ determination to find better ways of reaching learners who are struggling.
The case also raises a broader question for Guyana: How many children are falling behind before anyone intervenes?
Guyana’s Mathematics challenge does not begin at CSEC. Warning signs can emerge much earlier, when children miss foundational concepts and advance without mastering them. By secondary school, those gaps can become increasingly difficult to close. That makes early intervention critical.
The country needs to identify struggling learners sooner, understand where their gaps exist and provide sustained support before poor performance becomes entrenched. Parents also need practical ways to monitor progress, particularly when they cannot afford private tutoring or do not have the academic knowledge to teach the subject themselves. This challenge has implications beyond examination results.
As Guyana’s economy expands, demand will grow for engineers, technicians, scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs and other skilled professionals. Students who leave school without strong foundational Mathematics skills may face barriers to further education, technical training and many of the opportunities emerging from the country’s economic transformation.
Abrams pointed to growing investment in STEM education, including ExxonMobil Guyana’s announced US$100 million, 10-year initiative involving teacher development, student opportunities and career pathways.
Such investment can create opportunities, but Abrams’ work highlights the importance of ensuring that those opportunities reach children who are already struggling—not only those who are already performing well.
For Abrams, the learner’s journey reinforces a simple principle:
A child is not a grade.
A 12% records performance at a particular moment; it does not define a child’s potential.
The grandmother did not need to become a Mathematics teacher. She needed to remain engaged. The learner did not need an overnight transformation. She needed an opportunity to recover, build understanding and regain confidence.
The journey from 12% to 60% does not provide a formula that will work for every struggling learner. It does, however, demonstrate the value of refusing to accept failure as a child’s final destination.
And that is where Abrams’ mission becomes larger than one learner or one programme.
Raising the bar in Mathematics means raising expectations for every child—including those who have already fallen behind.
