Dear Editor,

The harsh realities post- COVID-19 will negatively affect the tertiary education sector in several ways. However, many of the solutions lie in the institutions themselves.

Even as great efforts are being made to ensure that high school students are prepared to sit external exams that will enable them to transition to tertiary institutions or the world of work, we must be cognisant that these efforts may be futile or will not yield the desired results.

Depending on what is happening in the region, students may just not be able to sit Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination papers or, if they do, the process will be fraught with challenges.

The suggestion of using school-based assessment (SBA) grades is not plausible as educators know that these are not good reflections of students’ achievements.

I support the call of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association President Owen Speid to abandon CSEC and CAPE sittings this time round.

Personally, I do not think the results will be worth the effort that will have to be made.

As an educator at the tertiary level I was already concerned by the disparity between some students’ exam grades and their limited knowledge, skills, and aptitude for learning.

I cannot imagine what an even more watered-down version of these exams or SBA grades only would reflect. Many candidates coming in on this ticket would need largescale intervention.

However, personal bias aside, I think that consideration should be given to an alternative assessment. This would help to mitigate the challenges of low student intake at the tertiary level and the risk of accepted candidates not having the prerequisite knowledge and skills.

If students are unable to meet matriculation requirements the domino effect will continue as tertiary institutions will have significantly reduced populations. The dominoes will continue to fall with loss of jobs, reduced benefits, rationalisation, etc.

As part of the recovery/mitigation strategy, I am suggesting that tertiary institutions be part of the solution by establishing comprehensive exams that can be used as alternatives to CSEC and CAPE.

Similar to high school equivalency exams the scores on these could be used to determine students’ eligibility for programmes of study.

Having established the basic core, exams of mathematics and English, the other subject-specific components required for areas of specialisations would also be created with students having options.

For example, a student wanting to specialise in the sciences would sit the general comprehensive exam and the exam(s) specific to science.

Tertiary institutions can be part of the solution to their problems as groups such as the teachers’ and community colleges, private tertiary institutions, and their partners should act now so that the standards are established and the required dialogue with the accrediting bodies can begin.

This proposed solution is more economically viable than going back to the days of students doing a preliminary programme. Let us forget the idea of them sitting the required exams at a later date, by then school could be in session and required interventions taking place.

Done in a systematic way, and with proper quality assurance, these alternative comprehensive exams could be the solutions to several problems even outside of COVID-19.

I challenge the tertiary institution administrators to put their teams to work on this. Put researchers to work to assess how this could work. They may even end up liking the results. This challenge is an opportunity; embrace it!

Samantha Radway Morrison

Senior lecturer Church Teachers’ College

Mandeville, Manchester

Samantha.radway@ctc.edu. jm