A week last Friday, addressing the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Director of Economics at the Caribbean Development Bank Dr Justin Ram recommended that Guyana abolish its Grade Six Assessment. He referred to it as the 11+ exam, i.e. the old Common Entrance, which effectively with some modifications it is. His view was echoed by several correspondents to the letters column of this newspaper, some of whom, at least, thought like him that “It shouldn’t be the case that at age 11, your life chances are made up.”
In reality, of course, this is not necessarily so, but that aside, he was quoted as going on to tell his audience that, “We need to ensure that all students have access to good quality education and not only the few that are successful at the 11-plus.” Even if it were the case that the quality of education offered in our senior and junior secondary schools was vastly superior to that in any other school − a moot point in some cases, perhaps − it has to be observed that the Grade Six Assessment says more about the past than it does about the future. In other words the insight it gives into the quality of primary education throughout the system is more important than its function as a placement tool.
And all things are not equal where primary schools are concerned. Given that education, as is often observed, is a cumulative process, making the schooling throughout the secondary level of a similar standard will not provide much benefit to a child who has been the victim of poor education at the primary stage. If the numbers of such children are small, a good secondary school can afford to give them special support; if they are large, however, it would mean its function would be converted to that of a remedial institution, rather than that of a secondary school. As such, the pupils not in need of such help could suffer.
One of the great primary education divides, as is regularly revealed in our Grade Six results, is that between the hinterland and the coast. In addition, and not surprisingly perhaps, the city in a general sense tends to perform better than rural areas, while the private schools achieve better results than the public ones do. One assumes that Dr Ram’s remarks were directed to public schools.
If, therefore, streaming were to be abolished, which is what would happen if the test component of the Grade Six were scrapped, would the private secondary schools (or some of them, at least) then introduce entrance exams so they could stream the students they admit, and perhaps even refuse the weaker ones? Certainly more affluent parents (and some less affluent ones) might be attracted by such an arrangement, on the assumption that their children would be exposed to something more like a senior secondary-type education, rather than the general secondary tuition which would be on offer to everybody in the public schools. If that happened, such schools would effectively be creaming off some of the more able pupils. This could have the added consequence of the private primary schools teaching with an entrance exam in mind, in contrast to the approach in the public schools.
It may be, of course, that even the public system might be amenable to making special arrangements for a limited number of gifted pupils after the abandonment of the test element in the Grade Six Assessment, although how they would be identified would be problematic.
One of the greatest complaints about the Grade Six Assessment has been that it is accompanied by the pernicious extra-lessons syndrome, which puts children of a young age under intolerable strain, and leaves no time for leisure and other pursuits. Some years ago, when the decision was taken to extinguish in the long term the test feature of the Secondary Schools Entrance Examination, as it then was, and use it solely as an instrument for assessment, similar arrangements were brought in for Grades Two and Four. The aim was to track a child’s progress through the system, and also by looking at a cohort’s performance in a school, to monitor how effectively the institution itself was fulfilling its function. Unfortunately, however, it was also decided to incorporate a small percentage of the marks from Grades Two and Four in the Grade Six final result, which promptly brought the young children from these earlier grades within the extra-lessons framework. It was former Minister of Education Rupert Roopnaraine who finally stopped the practice of transferring a proportion of the marks.
As for Grade Six, it has to be said that years ago no one needed extra lessons for Common Entrance or even SSEE in the beginning. Teaching in the classroom augmented by a bit of homework possibly, was sufficient preparation. But teachers have been using extra lessons as a means of supplementing their income for a long time now, and will be resistant to losing that private source of funding unless there is a substantial increase in their salaries to replace it. Some of them do not teach anything much in the classroom any longer; everything is postponed for extra lessons. Dealing with the problem will require the Ministry and whichever government is in office to hire a substantial number of inspectors who can do a great deal more monitoring in the classroom than is currently being undertaken, and to negotiate on the matter of meaningful salaries. Otherwise too when the abolition does come, teachers will simply leave the profession for more lucrative jobs.
There may also be an argument too for dropping the Social Studies paper, for example, thereby relieving pupils of the extra strain of all that learning by rote, and reducing the number of subjects for which parents feel obliged to pay extra. They could still have lessons in the classroom; it is just that the subject wouldn’t be tested at Grade Six.
Where secondary schools are concerned, Dr Ram was reported as advocating the use of technologies which would make it feasible for teachers to disseminate the best lessons to many schools at the same time. He thought that this would be possible when revenue becomes available because of oil. Presumably he would think that the same principle could be applied to primary schools too.
Such an idea might be superficially seductive, but Guyana is not Barbados which is now proposing to abolish Common Entrance, a development to which Dr Ram referred. However, at the present time the infrastructure simply does not exist in Guyana to make this possible. In addition, of course, this country presents the kind of geographical challenge which Barbados does not have to confront. It will take time before the electricity situation is stabilised, or most parts of the hinterland receive a sustained electricity supply at all. Then there is the extra security which will be necessary in our context. In the meantime we should be looking at hiring a cadre of qualified and professional teachers, to whom our oil revenues allow us to pay competitive salaries.
A good education for all is everyone’s aim; the issue is how best to get there. Education Minister Nicolette Henry was reported in the state newspaper as saying that abolishing the Grade Six Assessment was not a practical solution at the moment. For once she is right.