MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Principals in two south-central parishes have welcomed a promise by Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon that changes are to be made to the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examination to ensure literacy among children leaving primary school.

On Thursday, Morris Dixon, while touring four secondary schools in Mandeville — Belair, Mount Saint Joseph, May Day, and Victor Dixon — said she plans to inform the country as to the changes in summer.

“We have some suggestions to change things in September, but as always we don’t want to unilaterally do it. We want to make sure that what we are looking at actually matches with the recommendations that are coming in from the key stakeholders, so I expect that during the summer I will be able to announce changes to PEP. There will be changes to PEP,” Morris Dixon said in response to a question from a journalist at Belair High School.

“We have too many children leaving primary school who are not literate, and in my mind, what is the point of having a heavy curriculum and heavy material to go through and you are not literate? At a minimum every child should leave primary school literate, that is our goal.

“That is another reason why we have to look at it, and in September we have committed that we are going to timetable reading, which is a part of our commitment to that literacy focus, it is not on the timetable now in our primary schools and it needs to be, because we are not serving those children well,” added Morris Dixon.

On Friday, leaders of Maggotty High School in St Elizabeth, Mile Gully High, and May Day High in Manchester welcomed the news, but said they are awaiting the details of the changes.

“It is welcomed news, especially for schools which we call non-traditional, where, when I do a general assessment of my PEP results… it is a worrying trend of students not being able to read at their grade level,” said Maggotty High Principal Sean Graham.

“We do our own diagnostic tests [and] we find that many of them are reading below the grade level and some of them are critical, and having that many students coming into high school and can’t read not only poses academic challenges, it also poses disciplinary challenges, because you know the critical thinking skills are not developed, and then the nature of wanting to do better, that ambition is not fully developed either, and so it is serious as it relates to the children coming in with the ability to read,” Graham argued.

“We have students that are on different tracks. All our students are brilliant, but all our students learn different ways and at a different pace, and so while I understand the need for the assessment and having them learning a bulk of things about the world, I think the critical things need to be solidified. One of the things that need to be solidified before they get to high school is the foundation of numeracy and literacy,” added Graham.

He pointed out that efforts have been made at his school to broaden the curriculum for students having difficulty reading.

“I also think that one thing that needs to be tackled simultaneously with the changes that will be made in PEP is how do we get parents to be more involved in the education of their children, because this is also key,” Graham said.

Pointing out that students can easily get distracted by modern technology, especially the content on social media, Graham said it is important that parents provide support in terms of reading, ensuring homework is done and reinforcing the lessons from schools.

Mile Gully High Principal Christopher Tyme shared a similar sentiment.

“I am in agreement with changes being made, as a matter of a fact I am in agreement with any change that can be made to the primary school system that will lead to children at least coming out fully literate and numerate; that is very important, especially for us here at Mile Gully High where we have some enter at grade seven through the placement from PEP who are reading at grade one, two, three level when they should, in fact, be at the grade seven level,” Tyme told the Jamaica Observer.

“And so, we have to be doing a lot of remedial work to see if we can bring them up to standard. That would take us sometimes three or even four years of the time that they are in high school, so if the problem is solved at the primary level we would very much appreciate that. So I am looking forward to the details of any change that [is] going to be made and whatever those changes are, we hope that it will be successful,” said Tyme.

“Those students who are at or close to the level we work with, we offer them the high school curriculum, but those who are below, we have to be putting in intervention programmes to facilitate them. That has put a little stress, or challenge, on many of the teachers who are not normally trained to deal with those literacy issues,” he said.

“Normally, my teachers are subject-based teachers, so it presents a challenge for them. We would like that to be changed so they can be focused on preparing better for the world of work,” added Tyme.

In the meantime, principal of May Day High Stanford Davis said the challenge is also faced by parents who are sometimes not able to understand PEP questions.

“They usually complain that the PEP is like university… some parents say they have their first degree and the children get work in preparation for PEP and they have to call up the teachers to help them,” said Davis.

“The thing is that PEP, from what I understand, is more an application kind of examination that they use. Now, the question is, a child will do well in PEP, but when you test that child, when they come [to high school], you find that their reading is not on par, so some things do not add up,” added Davis.

He pointed out that an assessment is necessary to determine why some students who have excelled in PEP are not reading at their grade level.

“I am trying to figure out what it is that is causing these students to come with fairly good grades in PEP and then when they come they don’t perform at the level that is expected, and when they do the reading test, they do not read at the level where you would see reflected on their PEP grade,” said Davis.

“It needs to be reviewed. I am not sure if it is that the exam needs to have a reading component, so that…when you report to the stakeholders, you report the reading level of the students,” he added.

The May Day principal said a comparison should be done with the statistics derived from PEP.

“Let us say, for example, you have 10,000 students doing PEP and the statistics show that 5,000 of them are reading at their grade level; 3,000 reading above; 1,000 reading below; 500 at the pre-primer, et cetera, so you look more at that aspect.

“I believe if a child can read and comprehend, then learning the other skills will become much easier by the time they reach high school. I am not talking about reading the words, I am talking about understanding what they read as opposed to just reading, so I am of the view that we probably need to look at it in that light,” declared Davis.