FORMER education officer in the Ministry of Education Rev Charles Danvers agrees that some parts of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) curriculum could be introduced to students at the secondary level instead.

He, however, does not concur with Education Minister Rev Ronald Thwaites’ view that much of the material in the controversial examination is useless and does not test how well students will do in high school.

Commenting on whether the material in the GSAT was appropriate for the students, Rev Danvers said that may be so in some cases. “… For example, some for the concepts they do in science and so on; in some instances the extent to which it goes… could be left for high school,” he said shortly after this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s headquarters at Beechwood Avenue in Kingston.

Speaking in Parliament last Tuesday on the release of the GSAT results, Thwaites called the exam “the apartheid of the education system”. He said the GSAT robbed children of extra-curricular activities and was “cramming their heads with excess material that they will never use and which is no real test of their ability or their aptitude for high school”.

Added Rev Danvers: “I don’t know that there is information (in GSAT) that they will never use, because no information is ever lost. But some of it you could probably not go into that kind of depth. So I wouldn’t necessarily say you would never use it, but you may not find it applicable to the child for future learning immediately.”

Rev Danvers stressed that the GSAT takes into consideration the entire primary curriculum, especially from grades four to six, but also involving material from grade one.

He noted that the pressure for children to be placed in particular high schools was a legacy from the Common Entrance Examination which was abolished in 1998. “Part of this thing about pressure is a legacy from Common Entrance, because then we used to have Common Entrance factories. Now what we have are GSAT factories,” he said.