by Curlan Campbell
- Programme on student deficiency especially in areas of mathematics and english to begin
- Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) exams not held this year
- 67% of CPEA internal assessment scores and 33% from Minimum Competency Test scores used to determine student ability to transition into secondary school
All is not lost for the 129 students unable to advance to the secondary level, said officials from the Ministry of Education (MOE).
A commitment has been given that the officials at the MOE will commence engagement with parents and students to assess their level of competency and ascertain the reason for them not attaining the requisite score. Emmalin Pierre, Minister for Education, Human Resource Development, Religious Affairs and Information, announced a programme that will tackle student deficiency especially in areas of mathematics and english.
Minister Pierre said once that programme is complete, a diagnostic assessment will be conducted in September. “The statistics for years have been showing us, for example, a Grade 2 child is not reading at the Grade 2 level, or a Grade 5 student is not reading at a Grade 5 level. The point is this you must now be enrolled in a special support programme to ensure that when you get to Grade 6 you don’t end up in that 129 figure or statistics. We have to address those issues.”
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) exams could not have been held this year, instead, the Ministry of Education decided on using 67% of the scores of students from the CPEA internal assessment scores and 33% from the Minimum Competency Test (MCT) scores to determine student ability to transition into secondary school.
1,872 students including 988 males and 884 females were registered for the assessment of which 1,743 students were assigned to a secondary school throughout Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique. Among the 129 students that were retained, 25 females and 104 males. These students will have another opportunity to write the assessment in the 2020- 2021 academic year.
An endorsement from the cabinet will see the establishment of a programme targeting marginalised and at-risk students within the secondary schools. In addition, the Ministry of Education will be launching a special value-based education programme. “That programme will see the strengthening of existing programmes in our schools such as Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) but to give greater focus to that of the need importance of soft skills. When we turn out a student that has done well academically, we also want to look at the flip side of that coin as to how is that child doing in areas such as emotional intelligence,” Minister Pierre said.
This year saw 93.1% of students awarded placement in a secondary school compared to 92.4% last year.
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To assessment should begin from first grade, to ensure that the children be on par with the grade system. The problem does not begin in grade 5 ..it begins in grade 1. My argument has always been and I quote, ” why are children passed on to 2nd grade if they cannot read? How is that possible?why would it be mandatory for such?