Immaculate High students engage in an activity at the school.

The education ministry hasn't publicly declared its position, but insofar as the principal of Kingston's Immaculate Conception High School is concerned, there is no one more competent to teach Chemistry there than Jacquelyn Marshall.

"If Mrs Marshall is not qualified to teach CAPE chemistry, then who is?," asked the Roman Catholic girl school's principal, Sister Catherine Aarons, in a recent statement.
Neither does Marshall have any doubt about her own skill and competence, despite the public grousing of some parents in the school's upper classes.

MARSHALL. the two main conditions for success are the teacher's aptitude for imparting information and organising lessons and the student's ability to use the information effectively

"If an effective teacher is one who finds the information - wherever it is - and given the time available makes sound decisions about what the students should read on their own and what needs to be explained in detail because the students cannot do it on their own, then I consider myself to be an effective teacher," Marshall said in a recent interview. "I do not spoon-feed students, I empower them to learn."
Indeed, she insisted, any shortcomings in the performance of the school's sixth form students in Unit One Chemistry of the Caribbean Examination Council's (CXC) Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations, have to do more with available course material for a relatively new exam, and the attitude of the students themselves, rather than her own skills.

Sister Mary Catherine. what you have a lot of the time is a Grade 12 student with a CXC (O' Level) mentality, going to sit what is an advanced level exam

Marshall, apparently, has backers other than the Immaculate principal, who believe that she has come under unwarranted attack from some parents.
"Mrs Marshall is most definitely knowledgeable in all her subject areas and teaches by the principles of effective study where a student learns to focus and develop good study habits," wrote one of her students. "But we as students, who are inclined to be complacent, and greatly dislike working independently, are guided by our belief that we are intelligent, so hastily search for someone to blame for our shortcomings."
That blame, said the student, Shanna Stephens, inevitably lands in the lap of the teacher.

Marshall, who has a Chemistry degree from the University of the West Indies (UWI), a teaching certificate from Mico College and wide experience consulting in Jamaica's industrial chemical sector, last month found herself as a targetted symbol of what is essentially a larger issue: the right of parents to determine who is competent to teach their children.
The issue erupted when a handful of parents of sixth form students insisted that they did not want Marshall, 48, to teach this year's Unit Two syllabus for the CAPE Chemistry exam. The argument was that the students who were under her guidance for last June's exam had performed dismally.

Conchita Stultz (left) and Cecile Anderson (2nd left), both parents of Immaculate Conception High School students, talk with Fay Stiff (2nd right), senior education officer for Region 1 and Elaine Ralston, education officer under whose portfolio Immaculate falls shortly before a meeting with the school board chairman, Paul Bitter, at his office on Belmont Road last month. The meeting was called to resolve a dispute over the teaching of CAPE level Chemistry at the school.

The evidence of the nine parents who took their case to the education ministry, having not made headway with the school's principal and the school's board, was that, of the 24 students who sat the exam, only nine received grades one and three - those which carry weight among students. A dozen received grades five and six.
Those students who received decent grades, the parents claimed, had ridden on extra lessons paid for by parents, and including one who was the island's top performer in the CXC ordinary level exams.

But Marshall has a different interpretation of such matters.
"The students get the 'ones' - the highest grade - if the conditions are in place," she said.
By Marshall's assessment, the two main conditions for success are the teacher's aptitude for imparting information and organising lessons and the student's ability to use the information effectively.
Her method, she said, rests in providing guidance and information to the students, then allowing them to think for themselves and analyse the information.
Indeed, Marshall and her supporters interpret the results of June's Unit One exam differently to the grousing parents.
They point out that the Immaculate student who received a grade one was among only two students who have received this highest grade for CAPE Chemistry since the exam was first introduced in 1999.

Of Marshall's other students, one received a Grade II mark, while seven got Grade IIIs. Two received Grade IVs and 10 Grade Vs. None of Marshall's students failed to obtain a grade, and only two of the 23 failed to attain grades between I and V.
According to the CXC, "grades I to V represent acceptable qualifications for entry-level employment".
Why then are parents complaining?
Immaculate is one of Jamaica's top high schools and is considered an unofficial 'feeder school' for competitive university programmes such as medicine, law and natural sciences.
Although regional institutions such as the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Guyana will accept six CAPE subjects with grades between I and V for matriculation, the pressure to get high marks is strong, especially for students who are accustomed to getting good grades. In that regard, the Immaculate sixth form students, despite the majority attaining the "acceptable qualifications" did not do well.

"These students start out as the best - they get government scholarships, they do well all the way through high school and they do very well at CXC (ordinary level)," said one complaining parent. "So how is it that girls who are capable and bright manage to do so badly at this level?"
That, according to Marshall and Sister Mary Catherine, has much to do with the CAPE itself, and with the students - not the teacher.
CAPE, the regional alternative to the British A' Level examinations, was introduced by the CXC initially as a pilot project in 1998. Since then, a number of schools have adopted the unit-based examinations, but still fewer than half of Jamaica's high schools enter students for the exams.

Most of the CAPE subjects are offered in one-year units, where students sit exams at the end of the year-long course, in contrast to the Cambridge University's A' Levels, which can be done at the end of a two-year course. Although Cambridge has introduced its so-called Advanced Subsidiary (AS), a sort of half-way house to the A' Level, which can be done after one year of study.
But the fact that students sit the first CAPE unit at the end of their first year in sixth form is not a factor to be taken lightly, argued Marshall.

The structure of the units, she explained, puts more pressure on the student to immediately begin the rigorous studying that most A' Level students reserve until the final year of that course. A' Levels, she said, were structured so that the first year was devoted to introducing a number of concepts and topics, while the second year involved completing those areas and the optional components of the two-year syllabus.
"What they (Cambridge) do is to take the introductory part of each topic and put in year one and the more difficult part in year two, so what you would get is a more mature student with a wide background sitting the exam," Marshall explained. "CAPE simply chops the information in two: part in unit one, part in unit two, and as it turns out, the more difficult part falls in unit one."

Her job has been made no easier, she a rgued, by the fact that the exams started without adequate instructional material being available to teachers.
"It is difficult to teach CAPE Chemistry because traditionally, with A' Level Chemistry, the books are designed to flow with the syllabus," Marshall said. "Though CAPE examines the same level of Chemistry, the format is different."
When Cambridge reformatted the A' Level exams, she said, all the corresponding textbooks were revised and re-written to fit the new syllabus.

"This is 2002. CAPE Chemistry Unit One was first examined in 1999. We are yet to have a Chemistry book written for the exams," Marshall complained. "Although we use the A' Level books, which essentially have much of the same content, there are things that are in the CAPE Unit One syllabus that are not in the traditional A' Level textbooks. Next year, if there is no formal resource material available, I will not teach CAPE Chemistry Unit One."

Other high school teachers agree that there is a lack of specific instructional material for CAPE subjects, but according to one Chemistry teacher, these "minor teething pains" of CAPE shouldn't be a problem, especially if the teacher has taught A' Levels before.
"If you're qualified to teach A' Level Chemistry, then you're qualified to teach CAPE," that teacher said.

Marshall agreed, using that fact to further emphasise her point: "It's basically the same information, but the format is different. So assigning students to read on their own becomes a little hairy because it (the format) is difficult to manage."
The Immaculate Chemistry teacher said that in order to even be able to teach the subject, she had to do rigorous research to assemble the information, and very detailed planning to make sure that all the students covered all areas of the syllabus - whether in class or in their own study time.

According to Marshall, she attended both CAPE seminars offered by the CXC to familiarise teachers with the new syllabus, after which she spent "three, four days of the week out of my bed until 2:00 am, preparing information" for her students.
Nonetheless, some students didn't do as well as their parents expected.
Many students, Marshall said, came into the programme with study and learning habits that may have been acceptable at lower levels, but which do not work at the advanced level.

"Once you are bred in the culture of memory, record and regurgitation you run into problems with explain, discuss, justify," she said. "I say, if a student comes to me with a note-taking regurgitating mentality, then I cannot get that student to get a one - not at this level."
Added Marshall: "Even if you are given the notes, in great detail, not a comma left out, and you study it and you remember it all, you can go into the exam and get a question on that topic, and if you cannot use the information effectively, you still cannot answer it!"

One of her biggest challenges, according to Marshall, has been "the unwillingness of the student to accept that for a one-year exam, September to April is the only teaching time and, therefore, there is only one time to do the work".
"That time is now!" she emphasised.
Her principal agrees.
Sister Mary Catherine pointed to factors such as other student pre-occupations, and general immaturity, as being responsible for the girls' performance in the first CAPE Chemistry exam the school entered.
"What you have a lot of the time is a Grade 12 student with a CXC (O' Level) mentality, going to sit what is an advanced level exam," she said.

That immaturity was compounded by students' self-inflicted pressure to concentrate on applying to universities and colleges abroad.
"Many of our students get caught up in the hype about preparing for SATs," the principal said. "At the same time, they're thinking they have to join all these clubs and. essentially make their school transcripts look attractive. So the interest at this time, between September and December, is with preparing for SATs and going to extra lessons."

In the process, studying for exams suffers and there is not the luxury of making up the time in the second year as with the traditional A' Levels.
Sister Mary Catherine was clear that Marshall would teach the remainder of the Unit 2.
Said Marshall: "A pile of notes does not pass an exam. It is a big step, a big change in the method of learning. So I appeal to the parents to assist their children in making the transition because they are getting no marks for blaming someone else."

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