I welcomed the opportunity to attend the Ministry of Education’s second public consultation on the “Review and Findings of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT)” held at Jamaica College last Wednesday. While a gracious act of hospitality on the part of the organisers, I knew instantly that the proposals would not be satisfying when I saw the free cake, patties, sandwiches and drinks on offer.

So I availed myself of a cocktail patty as fortification against the bad news that it portended, and I was not disappointed. To use the words of the director of the Education Transformation Programme, Ms Jean Hastings, the already “rich in content GSAT is about to get richer”, “richer” being the euphemism for “harder”. The only relief, for parents scheduled to sit the exam next year, being that changes to the GSAT won’t be implemented until 2013.

For the uninitiated, the 10-year-old GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) is the one-and-only chance for your Grade Six student to get into a “quality” high school in which self-defence techniques are not required learning.

The GSAT consultations are the result of a review ordered by the minister of education, Andrew Holness, in response to criticisms and complaints from the public that the curriculum is too rigorous, the exam is too stressful on students (and parents), and often places children in schools which require parents to cough up a collective $19 billion for educational activities outside of the formal system — this according to findings from the Survey of Living Conditions — to ensure that students pass all required exams.

While the audience may have anticipated significant changes to the two-day-long series of tests, this is not to be so. The GSAT will continue to be administered over the two days and will be comprised of five distinct papers: Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies and a Literacy Proficiency Test which replaces the former Communication Tasks paper. This last and new test will serve as an “index of measurement of literacy at the end of Grade six and will examine students’ ability to apply relevant decoding skills, read for meaning at the literal, inferential and critical levels, as well as their ability to use Standard Jamaican English to write for a range of purposes”.

While the above may translate to simpler terms for the children actually writing the exam, on the surface it appears that this new Literacy Proficiency Test (GSLP), will be harder than the Communication Tasks exam which currently obtains and which requires writing one essay on subjects which range annually from sports day, or the possible water-borne diseases to be gained from roadside food vendors, or writing a product advertisement. Please note the additional requirement for children to be able to write in patois.

If I understood the presentations and the booklet correctly, then other changes call for an expansion in the curriculum and the GSAT exam to include more skills testing in the Science exam and the inclusion of Civics and Jamaican history in the Social Studies exam — this in an attempt to instil “pride in citizenship”, according to the GSAT Review Committee.

There is also to be a Continuous Assessment component which will be presented as one of the new proposals to improve the placement exam and which will take the form of a book review done at Grade 5 from a choice of three books, which are consistent with the Revised Primary Curriculum. The books will be assigned from Grade 4, with the report due by the end of Grade 5 and will contribute 15 per cent to the GSAT Language Arts Test Paper.

As it relates to the placing of students, a policy on zoning for placement based on location and merit was also offered up for discussion but was immediately discounted and abased as an elitist act denying the majority of students a quality education and separating children based on social demographics. For the record, I live in a terrific community, and as a result I am, selfishly, all for zoning when it comes to placing children in schools. Needless to say I would feel differently were I to live in a school zone with limited resources to support a quality education.

As such, that fantastic figure of $19 billion quoted earlier becomes an important factor. We wonder if this estimated amount spent by parents for education activities outside of the school system — namely extra lessons, extra-curricular activities and learning instruments — were they channelled back into the formal school system, would result in the improvement of the quality of product being delivered.

Clearly we need more schools, 120 by the ministry’s count, but we wonder too what would be the result if parents, instead of negotiating for places in more “desirable” schools, would lend their energy and efforts to the upliftment of the schools in which their children were placed.

The consultations continue through the end of the month, and I urge everyone/anyone who cares about education to attend. For more information and feedback please contact the Education and Transformation Programme at the Ministry of Education at gsatreview@moe.gov.jm.

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