ONLY three out of every 10 students who re-sat the Grade Four Literacy Test (GFLT) in June this year achieved mastery in the crucial examination.

This is according to Ministry of Education statistics, which also revealed that one in five of those who were registered to sit the test were no shows.

In the GFLT results published last Wednesday, of 12,529 repeaters registered, only 9,655 actually sat the exam. Of these, only 2,865 or 29.7 per cent achieved mastery.

The number of boys re-sitting the examination (6,889) more than doubled the number of girls (2,766), indicating the number of each gender who failed to master the exam at first sitting.

Notably, more male repeaters achieved mastery in the exam than females (1,805 males to 1,060 females), but the percentage of male repeaters achieving mastery was lower (26 per cent for males, 38 per cent for females).

Under the ministry’s competency-based transition programme, students must achieve mastery in the GFLT after a maximum of four sittings in order to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), which largely determines the high school in which the students are offered places.

Last April for the first time, more than 6,000 students were barred from sitting the GSAT because they had failed to master the GFLT. These students were channeled into the Alternative Secondary Transition Education Programme (ASTEP) with a view to improving their performance over a two-year period.

Meanwhile, questions are being raised as to whether the ministry is doing enough to improve the performance of students who are struggling at this level. However, ministry officials say they are using the data to implement strategies in poorly performing schools.

New national literacy co-ordinator (NLC) Dr Andre Hill said each year the NLC, along with the regional literacy co-ordinators, analyse the data of the schools’ performance and implement strategies for their improvement. He said a teacher in each school is identified as a school-based literacy co -ordinator and is charged with improving literacy standards at that school.

At the same time, Prime Minister Andrew Holness — supported by ministry officials — said the trend was that more students each year were achieving mastery after four attempts.

According to the ministry’s data, of the 2008-09 cohort, 85.5 per cent of the students achieved mastery by their fourth sitting of the GFLT in December 2010. But of the 2009-10 cohort, 85.5 per cent had achieved mastery by their third sitting of the GFLT in June 2011.

“We project that 92 per cent of this cohort (2009-10) will achieve mastery by their fourth sitting,” said Holness, who continues to hold the portfolio of education minister.

Commenting on the high percentage of absentees among the repeaters, he noted that it was not unusual as some teachers and parents decide not to have the students sit the exam on their second and third opportunity, but instead wait until the final opportunity when the child is in grade six.

Holness also said no school should be registering less than 40 per cent of its students not achieving mastery in the GFLT. However, he said the first option was not to separate persons from their jobs, but rather to find solutions to the problem.

“All the schools have received targets, and we wrote to all the board chairman on this. There will be a review as to why you missed the target or why you surpassed the target,” Holness said.