BY GARFIELD HIGGINS

Observer writer

higgins160@yahoo.com

THE history of primary/preparatory school transition, exit, placement, promotion — numerous terms are used by different people — examinations in Jamaica is an interesting one filled with chops and changes.

On keen examination, many argue that the variant shifts, shake-ups and segmentations have yet to address adequately the fundamental problems — those being standardisation of pedagogy at the primary level and the ‘leveling’ of the socio-economic factors that often influence if not determine access to quality primary schooling.

Once again the chief exit examination from primary to secondary is to be adjusted. A Gleaner article of May 8, 2014 said as much, albeit that the changes were noised abroad well before the publication of the newspaper story. It read inter alia:

“The Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) will be history by 2017. Education Minister Ronald Thwaites yesterday announced that a new exit exam will be in primary schools that time. He said the new exam will be one “which relies less on recall and more on continuous assessment that emphasised the student’s developing reasoning and critical thinking skills.”

The story went on, “Jamaica introduced GSAT in 1999, which replaced Common Entrance Examinations. (CEE) But amid criticisms that it places an unfair and unreasonable burden on grade-six children to remember material that has been taught from as far back as grade four, the Ministry of Education committed to a review and promised that GSAT would be replaced”.

Minister Thwaites, I have said on several occasions, is man of ideas, genuine academic acumen with a keen vision for education and Jamaica. He is the kind of person we need at the highest leadership levels in our politics. But I seriously wonder whether he has not been made a participant in continual game of ‘ring-a-ring-a rosey’, (Jamaican children’s ring game) with regards the exit examination at the primary level.

The arguments proffered for the imminent replacement of GSAT are essentially the same arguments that were used to inform the elimination of the CEE.

The real focus on provisions to improve quality teaching, making it the norm and not the exception at the primary level, and I stand to be corrected; has somehow been lost in the background, and a lesser issue, the examination; now occupies centre stage.

I attended Oracabessa Primary School in St Mary, one of the finest primary schools in this country, certainly at the time when I went there. Most of the children did well in the CEE and were placed at the high school of their choice. Why? Simply because we had some excellent teachers who cared, and example-setting parents who would whip our behinds on the school compounds in front of our friends and that special pretty girl; when we formed the fool.

It is not the type/structure of exit, placement, achievement examination that matters most, it’s the quality of the instruction.

This history of how we have moved from CEE, to GSAT, and are soon to move to the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) — albeit that PEP is not the name of an examination — is instructive and sheds much light on the reasons for the frequent misdirection.

Formal primary education — ‘free education’ — started in Jamaica after the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865. The building of primary schools to provide basic education to the children of freed slaves began with the advent of Sir John Peter Grant, who replaced the infamous Sir Edward Eyre that England recalled after the slaughter of many of Baptist deacon, Paul Bogle’s militia.

Formal ‘education’ before that grand episode in Jamaican history was controlled by a handful of missionaries assigned to specific churches. Only those in the middle class, who could not afford the journey to England, benefited. The beneficiaries became the earliest version of what we might call an indigenous civil society.

In 1957, Dr Ivan Lloyd of the People’s National Party, then minister of education, and one of Jamaica’s doyens of local education, made it public that the education system was not serving the needs of the majority black population and pinpointed that there needed to be a managed and seamless approach to the transition from primary to secondary school.

Despite Dr Lloyd’s Herculean efforts, there was a lingering problem of who could afford what, where, when, and how. In the

midst of a largely economically dispossessed black population, the equivalent of a modern affirmative action was needed.

The children of the poor have always been at a disadvantage, because of their socio-economic status. That challenge has worsened, as more and more families get poorer and poorer. It is highly unlikely that restructuring GSAT will obliterate this problem. How crucial is socio-economic status you may ask?

In July 2007, the crux of the issue was summarised by former prime minister and distinguished fellow at the UWI, Mona, Edward Seaga this way:

“Secondary schools at the time held their own entrance examination which enabled children of parents with means to ‘buy’ entry in the event of failure to gain access by merit. To overcome this, a Common Entrance Exam (CEE) was introduced in 1957, which would select successful entrants on merit only. The 1957 education policy declaration was aimed at improving the enrolment of students entering secondary schools, particularly among those who were unable to afford the fees.”

According to Dr Lloyd, apart from the few scholarships made available by the Government prior to 1957 (130 free places in a total secondary school population of 10,000), those who went to secondary schools were those who could afford to.

The main objective of this policy was to award free places to all students who, irrespective of the means of their parents, had achieved a minimum standard in the Common Entrance Examination, and for whom places could be found in high schools.

“The result of the CEE was vital to selection, irrespective of whether the student originated from fee-paying preparatory schools, or government free primary schools.

“However, the result did not match the expectation or intent. By 1961, over 20,000 students were sitting the CEE. Of that total, only 978 or 46 per cent of 2,133 free places to secondary schools were won by students attending primary schools, while 1,155 or 54 per cent from preparatory schools received awards. Analysis of these results indicated that only one in 86 students from primary schools had a chance of winning a free place as compared to one in four students from preparatory schools.

“Another conclusion can be drawn: 29 per cent of the students from private schools were successful, as compared to seven per cent of those originating from primary schools. Obviously there was a serious problem here: disproportionate entries.”

It would not be a stretch to conclude that the majority of the children from preparatory schools were coming from middle and upper class households, while conversely the majority of the children from primary schools were from lower class economic backgrounds. Slowly but surely, a two-tiered education system was beginning to take firm roots — the tree having been planted during colonialism

Edwin Allen, a champion of the poor, was minister of education during the JLP Government of the early 1960s. He introduced what was dubbed the 70:30 system and other foundational and functional policy changes that, to date, are unrivalled.

“Edwin Allen, minister of education in the Jamaica Labour Party Government elected in 1962, saw the problem of disproportionate entries, which militated against children from poorer homes. To adjust this, Allen announced a 70:30 policy which reserved 70 per cent of the free places to secondary schools for students from primary schools who were successful in passing the minimum standard in the CEE; the remaining 30 per cent was allotted to students from private schools.

“Notwithstanding the much larger number of free places now available as a result of the increased ratio for entrance from primary to secondary schools, there were other formidable problems to overcome — the inadequate number of schools and school places. Only a minority of primary school graduates were able to be placed in the secondary school system.

“There was a lack of aptitude for secondary education among the majority of primary school students who gained access to the expanded secondary school system; the cost of education at the secondary level was largely unaffordable to poor parents.

“It was obvious that a considerable increase in secondary school accommodation would be necessary if all students from primary schools were to gain entrance. This problem was detailed in the UNESCO Report on Jamaica’s education system in 1964. It had to be solved or the other reforms would be ineffective.

“Edwin Allen introduced a sweeping plan for education reforms in 1966 which he entitled ‘New Deal for Education in Independent Jamaica’. He announced an agreement with the World Bank to construct 50 (my insert, only 41 were actually built) new secondary schools to augment the existing 47 schools at secondary level; 40 primary schools by the end of 1967, and an increase in the annual output of trained teachers from 350 to 1,000 by 1969. This was the first project of the World Bank in secondary education anywhere. By more than doubling the number of secondary places, this would considerably increase the enrolment into secondary schools,” — Edward Seaga, 2007.

After all the investment it was discovered that these schools, which were called junior secondary schools or ‘Seckie’ (a derogatory reference), as some used to call them in the country parts, accepted students who, in many if not most instances, could not read and/or write with facility, having ‘graduated’ from the primary school system.

Additionally, cost prevented many of the students who attended junior secondary schools from accessing the comparatively ‘inferior’ education that was offered.

Again the twin challenges of quality and socio-economic challenges were supported by the research.

The majority of students who entered the junior secondary schools were not ready to receive the education simply because they were often ill-prepared at the primary level and even before that at the then burgeoning early childhood level. The enormity of this specific problem was overlooked, albeit I doubt, deliberately so.

Some have argued, however, that the junior secondary schools were designed to create individuals who were to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Like a kind of Abrahamic curse, they were doomed to fail. Others have been even more cynical to argue that junior secondary school students were being made into peons for the politics.

Michael Manley tried to solve this problem by announcing ‘free education’ from primary to university on May 1, 1973. This move while being well-intentioned, created greater problems, doubtless unintended. Within a few years, the bauxite levy was wiped out and two oil crises of the 1970s sounded the death kneel of the ‘free education.’ “By the middle of 1975, budgetary expenditure increased from $47,750,000 to $209,000,000.” (Hansard)

From 1957-1999, the Common Entrance Exam consisting of Mathematics, English and mental ability was king.

Children got three chances to pass the CEE. For boys especially, this was an advantage. Male students, many studies have shown, develop a little later compared to their female counterparts. The examination had all multiple choice questions; you either got it right or you did not. Results were published in the newspaper and many students dreaded their names not appearing underneath one of the schools they selected. Invariably, as with all things in life, hundreds were often disappointed. I remember an unfortunate instance of a boy in St Thomas who hanged himself after he did not pass the CEE.

The stress of preparation inclusive of ‘extra lessons’, was tremendous. But how is that different for the preparation for the GSAT? Nowadays, I see children with huge bags of books struggling to carry them. Children, from my observation, are now under greater pressure. Now they have five subjects — mathematics, English, social studies, communication tasks and science to pass. Effectively, like the CEE, you have to do splendidly well in all the subjects to gain the top spots in the ‘best’ high schools.

The writing tasks incorporated in the GSAT and other critical skills elements make for a more ‘comprehensive’ testing, some will argue. But a similar defence can be made for the ‘multiple choice structure’ (I use the term multiple choice for familiarity sake) of the defunct CEE. As a matter of fact, some very credible educational literature, which I won’t quote here because of space constraints, posit that multiple choice exams are better measurements of critical thinking. It is a fallacy to believe that simply because an examination is made up of multiple choice items; it only tests simple recall and not higher-order thinking. There are multiple choice examinations and then there are multiple choice examinations.

Again, it is not the type and structure of the examination which decides how well children perform, it is the quality of preparation, the quality of the preparers, parents and how well the prepared does on the day. All of the four Ps have direct linkages to socio-economic realities. Simply, no matter how you shape and structure primary school exit examinations, the children of parents from the middle, upper middle and upper socio-economic classes will more often do better than their peers in the lower socio-economic brackets.

We have an elitist education system that is underfunded. The JLP Government of Edward Seaga initiated a bold programme in 1988 to narrow the elitism in our education system. Sixteen new secondary schools, initially, were ‘upgraded’ to high school status. While some argue to this day that upgrading as a policy is predicated on a formula of deception, rooted in smoke and mirrors, I disagree in part. Many of these schools are doing quite well academically and in sports. There is ample empirical evidence for that. Space again prevents me from delivering fulsomely.

Recently, Central High in Clarendon defeated Calabar High from Red Hills Road, St Andrew in Television Jamaica’s annual Schools’ Challenge Quiz.

GSAT or PEP — what’s in name? In this instance nothing of great separation. In another submission, I will give my five dollars on the GSAT versus the proposed PEP, plus make some suggestions as to what I see as the way forward. It is important that we don’t play ring-a, ring-a rosy with our primary school exit examination lest we come up with a pocket ‘full of posey.’ (Symbolic but less valuable results)

Garfield Higgins in an educator and journalist.