MANDEVILLE, Manchester — President of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association Clayton Hall has criticised Education Minister Ronald Thwaites for speaking out Tuesday on this year’s GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) before the release of the results to children.

Hall told the Rotary Club of Mandeville Tuesday night that by “going to Parliament” and hosting a press conference prior to the release of the individual results, Thwaites betrayed a lack of understanding of child psychology.

The JTA president told his audience that “it is a significantly traumatic experience (for children) just to wait…”. The trauma, he suggested, had been made worse by the minister’s approach.

The results of the annual GSAT determine the placement of primary school-aged students in high and junior high schools.

Thwaites tabled a ministry paper on the GSAT results in Parliament on Tuesday and followed up with a press conference in which he discussed broad aspects of the exam results. Individual GSAT results are expected to be circulated to schools today.

“The first thing the minister should have done is to interrogate the data before… any statement or announcement on it,” Hall told Rotarians at their regular gathering at the Gold View Hotel.

“The students should have been facilitated with the results and then you could make any number of statements you want in Parliament or otherwise. I think it shows a lack of understanding of child psychology why the minister is taking this route and I would implore him to seek to access good advice in terms of how to treat with children…,” said Hall.

The JTA president argued that “anybody who has been around a child for a long time will recognise that it is never a good thing to keep children in suspense. Based on their emotional development and the stage they are at, they become easily anxious, they develop significant emotional volatility when they are awaiting something”.

“I think the minister has not been advised adequately in the procedures he is using this year for the GSAT examination results. Any announcement and interrogation of the data should be done after the students have received their results, to announce the matter on media that your are going to take it to Parliament and then after Parliament you are going to do a press conference, and then after the press conference, only then will the students receive this data is putting our already traumatised students through too much emotional turmoil.” Hall’s comments on the approach to releasing the GSAT results came in the midst of a lengthy presentation in which he reiterated the JTA’s position in its current dispute with Thwaites on conditions of employment, and also explored a range of other issues in education.