THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has condemned the Ministry of Education for promoting ‘functionally illiterate’ students from primary to secondary schools, and called for an end to the practice.

During Tuesday’s sitting of the PAC, the frightening problem of illiteracy overshadowing the nation’s preteens and teenagers were outlined.

Chief education officer Jasper Lawrence said figures for the last five years showed that of the thousands of children who sit the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) – the national examination which places students in secondary schools – annually, one in five receive a score equal to or less than 33 per cent in language arts.

This figure is measured against a cut score from a United States Agency for International Development programme which declared that such students were “functionally literate”.

“In 2009, 47,815 sat, and from that number, 9,989 obtained a score equal to or less than 33 per cent in language arts. That is, 9,989 students are not considered to be ready for accessing the secondary curriculum,” Lawrence told the PAC.

However, nearly 10,000 or 21 per cent such students were promoted this academic year, and Lawrence said that annually, an average of 51,000 students are prepped for secondary school at the end of grade six.

“Of the 168 high schools (in Jamaica) these students end up in about 93 of them. We have 3,836 in 79 primary and junior high schools, and in 50 all-age schools we have just over 1,000,” Lawrence disclosed.

According to him, literacy specialist were in the secondary schools working with the children. But PAC chairman Omar Davies questioned whether it was not better if the remediation took place in the primary schools, rather than have the children move to secondary schools and graduate even more illiterate.

Lawrence said 68 of 90 literacy specialists were already in the system, and Salomie Evering, deputy chief education officer of curriculum and support services, said the ministry is not only responding to the students, but was providing support for the teachers as well.

“Come with me, Mr chairman, to the Gun Court or to the Horizon Remand Centre, to Tower Street and you will see the next stage of the what the members speak of,” said PAC member Ronald Thwaites.

He said disregard was given to his motion in 2008 urging against “social promotion”.

“We have got to stop it. And the Ministry of Education is still doing it. And this chimera of support… that’s what the support is because the children are not getting it,” Thwaites remarked, adding that the education ministry was weak-kneed.

Davies agreed.

“My rough calculations is that you have about 25,000, 30,000 students in the high school system who shouldn’t be there. You have us here united, probably the only thing we will unite around. Tell us what can we do as an immediate thing, that you don’t send any more students into, and I don’t care how much you are doing in early childhood, we cannot be sending another 5,000 students into first form in high school who can’t read,” Davies pleaded.

“What we are doing now, we are saying that if a youngster cannot master the grade four reading test, that youngster should not be advanced to go GSAT, because it would be a waste of the youngster’s time,” Lawrence said.

The committee members, made up of representatives from the two main political parties – the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s national Party – were unanimous in their call that the practise be discontinued.