KINGSTON, Jamaica — People’s National Party’s (PNP) Shadow Minister of Education, Ronald Thwaites, says the government must come clean on the challenges facing the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations, as the future of the nation’s children is at stake.

In a statement last evening, Thwaites with strong backing from the PNP Education Commission said Education Minister Ruel Reid has misled the Jamaican people about the performance of children in the PEP performance mock exam.

Thwaites said the ministry has refused to release the detailed results since they became available.

He added that after this refusal, the Reid led the nation to believe that over 80 per cent of the students performed satisfactorily and the rest would soon be assisted to catch up.

“The country now knows that none of that is true.”

He said Reid fudged the figures for raw political ends, equating the few who performed satisfactorily with those who did not meet the standard, and now has his ministry officials trying to justify the falsehood.

“How can a “near” pass, be the same as a good pass which, nothing less, is what the students and the nation need?” Thwaites questioned.

“Because it is the stated and clear principle of the Peoples National Party to end the apartheid in education, and my demand for the detailed break-down of the results in Parliament, the cover-up was exposed. Now we know,” the education spokesman said.

He noted that the results are dismal with not much more than 25 per cent of children reaching the standards in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies needed to do well in high school and in later life.

“After this, how can we trust anything that minister Reid tells us about education in the future?”

The PNP is now calling for an urgent national consultation on the state of primary education.

In addition the PNP statement said there needs to be a massive retraining of teachers to enable them to redress the bungled way in which the National Standard curriculum has been imposed by the Ministry of Education.