Chief Education Officer, Dr Marcel Hutson yesterday announced that the National Grades Two, Four and Nine assessments as well as the placement examinations will not be written this year.
The announcement was made by Dr Hutson in a video uploaded to the Ministry of Education’s Facebook page. He explained that due to the adverse efforts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education sector, the exams will not be administered in 2021.
“We recognise the hardships our students would’ve been experiencing in relation to their readiness and preparedness for these examinations and we also recognise the need for us to ensure that all of our students are safe,” the Chief Education Officer was quoted as saying.
In the almost two-minute-long video, Hutson noted that in the absence of these assessments, students would still be catered to. Students from private schools will be placed at schools awarded to them at the National Grade Six Assessment, while remigrant learners will be placed in appropriate list A and B secondary schools which are closer to their homes.
He added that the assistant Chief Education Officer and Regional Education Officers will be responsible for ensuring the efficacy of these options that are being offered.
The assessments were also cancelled last year with Education Minister Priya Manickchand saying that it was impractical to assess students at a time when schools were still adjusting to the setback brought on by the pandemic. While reminding that having large gatherings was among the concerns, she had added, “It doesn’t make sense to try to do a diagnostic test that’s supposed to be testing you on work that you couldn’t cover because you were out of school. Without the syllabus completed the students can’t be tested… it doesn’t make sense just doing it so that we can check a box.”
As for the Grade Nine assessment which provides grades for subsidies to be determined based on results of the assessment, Manickchand had said that such matters can be determined in Grade Ten by performance levels. She added that when school does physically reopen it would be mandatory for assessments to be conducted to know where students are academically. However, schools have not been physically reopened since their closure in March 2019.
