KINGSTON, Jamaica— For the academic year 2020/2021, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MoEYI) intends to administer the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) at grade 6 using the usual approach, guided by COVID-19 protocols.

These students’ profiles will comprise grade 4 PEP done in 2019, and the grade 6 components to be done in 2021, Education Minister Fayval Williams told Parliament yesterday.

She said the MoEYI will advise on the weighting to be applied after a comprehensive study to be done by the consulting psychometrician on the students’ actual data.

“We understand the impact on learning loss that would have happened during the pandemic and we want to assure parents and students that we have taken this into consideration for the PEP examination,” the minister said.

“For PEP 4-6, we have reduced the content coverage to be assessed, we have delayed the sitting of the performance task and the curriculum based test for later dates in the year, and we have planned interventions including the services of private education consultancy services to enable our students to perform at the best of their abilities.”

The minister said the first component to be tested at grade 6 is the ability test which will be administered on February 23, 2021. 

The dates for the performance tasks for grade 6 students for the academic year 2020-2021 are April 22, 2021 – language arts performance tasks; and April 23, 2021 – mathematics performance tasks.

“The performance task is an activity or assessment that asks students to solve a problem by demonstrating their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. It is curriculum-based and assesses students’ grasp of concepts, principles and procedures from the language arts and mathematics content.  The scores for the performance tasks for language arts and mathematics will be combined with the scores the students receive in the respective curriculum based tests to give an overall score of the students’ achievement of the learning goals of the National Standards Curriculum for the different subjects,” Williams said.

The curriculum based test for grade six students will be May 25, 2021 – language arts and science; and May 26, 2021 – mathematics and social studies.

“The ministry, through its usual bulletins to schools, is sharing this update and we are asking school administrators to ensure that the information is shared with all our stakeholders as we prepare the way forward for the smooth administration of this crucial examination,” Williams said.