| |
|
| |
New
Test of Ability For High School Entry in the Caribbean
By Corinne Barnes
Inter Press Service
|
| |
|
| |
KINGSTON, Mar 24 (IPS) - Thousands of grade six students will
be trooping to examination centres next week for tests designed
to assess their ability to qualify for entrance to select high
schools in Jamaica. |
| |
|
| |
But,
unlike in the past, their promotion from primary to secondary
schools will not be based solely on their performance in the
test to be held over two days, from Mar. 30.
|
| |
|
| |
Rather,
the examination marks the end of months of on-going assessment
under the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), first introduced
in Jamaica last year, to replace the dreaded Common Entrance
Examination (CEE).
|
| |
|
| |
For 57 years the CEE was the method which almost always decided
the fate of students. Those who did well were guaranteed a
place in one of the select high schools, those who did not
were relegated to schools deemed inferior or denied the opportunity
of a high school education.
|
| |
|
| |
The
examination, taken between January and May in most islands
in the region, has been blamed for creating a population of
neurotic children and parents.
|
| |
|
| |
Irritability,
anxiety, depression, nightmares, psychotic behaviour, headaches,
fever, vomiting and unwillingness to attend school were common
among the 11 and 12 year old children preparing for the CEE,
according to parents and psychiatrists.
|
| |
|
| |
Housing
Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, John Humphrey, once famously
described it as that ''brutal Common Entrance, which has been
branding thousands of young children as failures every year
since the '60s.''
|
| |
|
| |
But
it was not until the suicide of a 12 year old Jamaican boy,
for not scoring well in the CEE a few years ago, that more
serious notice was taken of the tremendous strain on children.
|
| |
|
| |
Students,
educators and parents throughout the region have long argued
for a new entrance test that truly assesses a child's academic
ability. So last year, Jamaica took the lead in the region
and abolished the CEE, replacing it with the GSAT.
|
| |
|
| |
The
Jamaican government described the GSAT as the instrument which
would bring equity to the distribution of students to the
secondary schools. The government called it a more meaningful
way of determining the ability of students.
|
| |
|
| |
Under
the previous CEE system, the Ministry of Education would find
places in high and comprehensive schools for only the top
30 percent of the more than 50,000 students who took the exam
annually. The rest had to make their own way into the technical
and all-age schools or in private institutions.
|
| |
|
| |
But
last year under the GSAT, the Ministry, placed almost 42,000
children in secondary schools. This year 47,000 students are
taking the examination on Mar. 30 and 31. More places have
been created for students by upgrading some all-age and junior
secondary schools to high school level.
|
| |
|
| |
The
new system, while it has been welcomed, has its own set of
problems, warn educationists.
|
| |
|
| |
''Automatic
promotion from the primary to the secondary level without
the requirement of meeting some performance standards is not
the best use of scarce resources and sends the wrong signals
to our young people,'' says Errol Miller, head of the Institute
of Education at the regional University of the West Indies.
|
| |
|
| |
Miller
feels that where students in primary schools do not merit
places in secondary schools, they should be placed in all-age
or junior high schools.
|
| |
|
| |
Others
argue that more needs to be done by the Jamaican government
if it is truly serious about reforming the education system.
|
| |
|
| |
Meanwhile
the government of Trinidad and Tobago has signalled its intention
of following Jamaica's lead and getting rid of the CEE.
|
| |
|
| |
Ten
years ago a National Consultation Committee on Education had
recommended that the burden on students would be eased if
the continuous assessment of students' performance in primary
schools was made the criteria for their admission to high
school.
|
| |
|
| |
Now
the government has decided to implement that recommendation.
The CEE is to be abolished next year and replaced by a Continuous
Assessment Programme (CAP) which will focus on basic Mathematics
and English proficiency.
|
| |
|
| |
''Come
next March, the dreaded Common Entrance will be no more, gone,
deposited in the dustbin of history,'' Prime Minister, Basdeo
Panday, said recently.
|
| |
|
''The Common Entrance Examination has distorted and corrupted
our education system. The entire primary school experience
has been driven by this awful exam, disrupting the joy of
learning and in fact hindering the learning process,'' he
added.
|
| |
|
According to him, parents will not have to wait until the CEE
to ''find out your son or daughter may not be ready for secondary
school or should have been helped long ago in Maths or English
or in Social Studies or Science.'' |
| |
|
But Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago stand alone in the Caribbean
in their willingness to outlaw the dreaded CEE. The other countries
are still holding fast to this method of promoting children
from primary to secondary school. |
| |
|
The eastern Caribbean island of Barbados, for instance, even
in the face of opposition from some educators, wants to maintain
the status quo. Education Minister Mia Mottley said the CEE
is here to stay. |
| |
| |
This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
