PARENTS interested in having their children perform well in the annual Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) may not need to look further than the GSAT Centre.

Located along Hope Road in Kingston, the facility claims to have the remedy for the many students who are fear-stricken at the prospect of sitting the exam each year and parents who fork out thousands of dollars to finance the cost of extra lessons.

The centre — the brainchild of Stephanie Corchor, a university lecturer and educator for 22 years — has been promoted as the place where parents can send their children to better understand GSAT subjects and to pass the Government exam.

“The idea to form the centre came about because of a concern I had for my own child,” said Corchor, chief administrator for the facility.

She noted that it was while reviewing her son’s homework in 2005 that she noticed several gaps.

“It was out of this observation that I volunteered to work with the teachers at my son’s school,” Corchor said.

She added that after working with a number of teachers, she realised that the methods they were using to pass on knowledge to the children were unclear and so decided to form the GSAT Centre.

Now, for $20,000 each term — or at a price negotiated to reflect a parent’s ability to pay — students are given top of the line attention by specialist teachers in all the subject areas, including mathematics, the chief administrator told Career & Education.

Juliet Nicholson, one parent who has benefited from the programme in recent times, has praised the work of the centre.

“My son who now goes to Lannaman’s Preparatory School has been with the centre for three years and I have seen a marked improvement in his school work,” said Nicholson, a secretary at Jamaica Broilers.

According to the mother, since he started attending the centre, her child has moved from scoring below 40 per cent in many subjects to being “an honour-roll student for grade five at his school”.

Nicholson cautioned, however, that for the programme to be successful, parents must be willing to work closely with their children.

Corchor, meanwhile, explained how the centre does its work.

“The institution uses creative methods to identify the strengths and weaknesses of students. When this is done, students are placed in a programme aimed at addressing the problems,” she said, adding that this is why 90 per cent of the students who prepare for the examination at the centre have secured passing grades.

Among the high schools to which students educated at the GSAT Centre have earned places over the years are the Queen’s School, Immaculate Conception High, and Campion College, among others.

According to Corchor, parents are also invited to sit in with students for the classes, which run from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm each weekday.

“I have found that in a number of institutions across the island, many of the teachers are not qualified and capable of imparting the necessary knowledge to their students,” she noted.

Corchor also said that many teachers, because they were not fully qualified, lack confidence and are even afraid of some subjects like mathematics, which is reflected in the work of many students.

She added that to resolve the problems, Government needs to place qualified teachers at the basic and primary levels as a first step.