Dear Editor,
Guyana’s placement system for the Common Entrance examination can be improved by adopting a policy to have a certain number of the top performers (regardless of marks, but with a cut-off point) from every region to be given a place in the senior secondary schools. This will ensure that a core number of students from Sophia, Albouystown, Amelia’s Ward Linden, Port Mourant, Crabwood Creek, Orealla, or wherever, have an opportunity to receive the best secondary education. Recently, a distraught mother explained to me that her son had secured marks for one of the junior schools and that it was obvious that there was a severe teacher shortage at the school, causing the child to come home frustrated each day. This mother, being a businesswoman, has taken her son out from his public school and is sending him to a private school. This is not an option for those who cannot afford the hefty fees.
The current Common Entrance examination is an enormous, unnecessary amount of work, not seen in earlier decades. In those earlier times persons who became QC boys and Bishops girls, may never have done so had they faced this onerous curriculum, especially if they did not have parents or older siblings standing by to complement the work of our teachers. Furthermore, the level of interpretation required by some examination questions in science, mathematics and social studies, in many cases is also high and should be kept for high school. Questions should be more factual. Hence we see these kids having to spend holidays and hours after school for ‘lessons.’
Year after year, we see that the top performers are the children of lawyers, judges, teachers, doctors, or else they come from the private schools or the few excellent public primary schools. My intimate involvement with this exam has revealed to me that to pass this exam a kid must have a competent parent or guardian at home to assist with the instruction he receives in school. My 10-year-old daughter writes the Common Entrance next year, and I now have to programme my own activities to help prepare her for it. In fact, I say to my friends that I am writing the Common Entrance exam.
Casual inquiry reveals that the results correlate with the parents’ academic ability and economic position. It is not that those who do not perform well do not have the same capacity for learning, it’s just that they have not had the same preparation. So using even a cumulative score to prioritise which kids get the best high school is ‘unequalising’ and reinforces unequal access to educational opportunities. To some extent it reinforces class structure. If you get the best primary school, you also get the best secondary school, then the best university.
I am fully aware that the Ministry of Education is making efforts to improve Common Entrance, but a few more improvements can be made. They should look at the curriculum again and cut out the unnecessary parts. There is no evidence to suggest that Common Entrance performance will determine how ‘successful’ you are in life. They should look at the examination questions and make them more factual, rather than requiring too much interpretation.
They could make another improvement by giving a certain number of the top performers in each region, regardless of their marks (and with a reasonable cut-off point), places in the senior secondary schools, even if this is on a scholarship. It may be worthwhile to reserve President’s College for this purpose. It already has live-in facilities.
These improvements give an additional justification for investing proportionately more resources in the senior high schools as centres of excellence. It also makes sense in terms of allocating already scarce resources for secondary education.
Yours faithfully,
Joycelyn Williams
Editor’s note
1. Technically speaking, there is no Secondary Schools Entrance Examination or Common Entrance any longer. Marks from the Grade Six Assessment (for 11-12 year-olds) are combined with those from the Grades Two and Four Assessments which pupils take at a much younger age to determine placement in senior secondary schools. The last two assessments account for a relatively small proportion of the total marks.
2. Paper I (the longest paper) of the Grade Six Assessment in all four subject areas (as with the old Common Entrance) takes a multiple choice format, and of necessity, therefore, is already geared to factual information. The structure and content of this paper (some updating aside) have changed very little over the years.
3. There are senior secondary schools in Berbice, Linden and Essequibo, and not just in Georgetown. In addition, education in public schools in this country is free anyway, which makes ‘scholarships’ seemingly redundant.
4. Placement is only for senior secondary schools; the majority of students are supposed to attend secondary institutions in their catchment areas. The declared intention is to phase out selection – and streaming, therefore – altogether, so that everyone attends a secondary school near to their place of residence. It has only been partially implemented so far because according to explanations given by more than one Ministry of Education official, there are not enough secondary school places of roughly equal standing available at the present time to cater for everyone.
