ST JAMES, Jamaica — Beginning in 2026, grade-six students taking the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams will face fewer testing days with mathematics and language arts assessments, as they will be condensed into single-day sittings under new changes.

This was announced by Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, during a back-to-school conference for principals and vice-principals from Region 2 (Portland, St Thomas and St Mary), held at Hideaway at Royalton Blue Water in Falmouth, Trelawny, on July 15.

“For the grade-six PEP, we’re going to collapse the exams together. So, this means you do all of your mathematics on one day and all of your language arts on one day,” Morris Dixon outlined.

Moreover, the exam timeline is being shifted from February to the months of April and May to give educators more time to deliver the curriculum to students ahead of the exams, said the minister.

She noted that these changes are not a complete overhaul of the PEP structure but are immediate, manageable “low hanging” adjustments that aim to reduce stress, while improving the learning and teaching experience for students and teachers, respectively.

In addition to the scheduling changes, Morris Dixon pointed out that the ministry is to introduce new literacy and numeracy questions within the grade-six PEP papers. This is to help the ministry gauge and assess the numeracy and literacy levels of students at the end of primary school, she noted.

“It’s just some questions that we’ve added that give us a touchpoint on numeracy and literacy [because] currently we do not test literacy and numeracy at PEP.  PEP is testing the extent to which you’ve mastered the curriculum. It’s a curriculum-based test,” Morris Dixon said.

In the meantime, the minister indicated that for grade five, the ministry is considering discontinuing the PEP exam, but has deferred a final decision pending further consultations with the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) and other stakeholders.

She argued that the idea is for the grade-five examination papers to be provided to schools for use as end-of-year school assessments.

“So, the only decision we’ve made, so far, is to collapse the exams, move them later for grade six, and add the touchpoint questions, so we can know numeracy and literacy numbers at grade six,” she added.

Morris Dixon said that these actions stem from a wider review of the PEP system that she initiated upon taking office, pointing out that the review focuses on two main questions – how to reduce the administrative and emotional burden of the exams and whether PEP is achieving its intended outcomes.

She indicated that the feedback collected through formal and informal consultations, as well as a recently distributed questionnaire, revealed a shared concern over the extended exam period and the pressure on students over the three-year testing in grades four, five and six.

–       JIS