In a report examining how effective the education ministry is at using its resources to maximise student achievement, the OAG found that government has no clear strategic direction for education and is using the $86 million budget poorly.

“Despite education being a priority area and one of the Government’s strategic broad outcomes, there is no overarching strategic plan that sets out the goals, objectives and outcomes that are expected to be achieved,” said Auditor General Sue Winspear.

“We found that there was limited understanding between the use of resources and performance. It is important that good success measures and outcomes are set for education to ensure that success can be measured and money is being spent on things that will make a difference,” she added.

This is the first time that the OAG has ever looked at how the education ministry spends its main budget, which accounts for more than 12% of the government’s core budget. The report drew some worrying conclusions about what appears to be badly managed investments.

The auditors found concerning levels of under-performance across all government schools against the expected levels, as well as a significant gender gap, with girls out-performing boys, except for primary school maths.

And while government has increased spending on special needs students, the auditor’s report said it was not clear if it was helping, as the attainment of primary school students with SEN declined significantly last year in all subjects except writing.

“We found that despite investment in special educational needs increasing significantly, it is not clear if it is improving outcomes for students with special educational needs,” Winspear said. “There has been a significant increase in the number of specialist staff but the performance of students with special educational needs continues to be mixed.”

The report also found there was no overall strategy for engaging parents. Each school develops its own approach, and while that means engagement can be tailored to meet the needs of each school, there are risks that messages are not communicated consistently and parents are not adequately engaged.

But even students are not engaged as they should be, as Winspear’s team identified high levels of truancy, which haves increased over the past five years. Using data they examined from 2013 to 2018, the OAG found that the average number of missed sessions per student increased in most schools. The auditors said some schools have a significant truancy problem, such as Savannah Primary and John Gray High School and the Cayman Islands further Education Centre.

The auditors also raised concerns about the ministry’s failure to align education goals with those of employment. The government has said it wants to improve education to ensure full employment for Caymanians but the report said there “is no clear link between the vision and priorities for education and economic priorities”.

The OAG said there was no indication as to how the education system will produce graduates with the skills the job market needs. In particular, the auditors noted the absence of any clear link between scholarship funding, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and whether what those students are being paid to learn will meet the requirements of the available jobs.

The report paints a worrying picture of government’s failure to examine how public funds are being used in one of its major priority areas. With everyone calling for more investment in education because of the continually disappointing results, this audit implies that the problem is not a shortage of cash.

Despite the damning findings of the OAG, the Ministry of Education issued a statement following publication of the report claiming it was providing world-class educational opportunities while tackling a myriad of societal ills, including illiteracy, unemployment, criminality and lower economic growth.

“We ensure that each dollar that is spent delivers value for money so that we can tackle these global challenges effectively,” officials said.

The ministry said it would continue to build on the initiatives it had already implemented to improve student progress and attainment and would seek to provide further research-based initiatives that target the specific needs of students. Officials acknowledged the importance of a strategic plan for education and said that the ministry would include this in its future plans.