“I don’t think that under my leadership . . . I am going to panic and rush headlong into a mess . . . to cause us further or greater danger.” – Minister of Education Ronald Jones.
In last week’s SUNDAY SUN, the registrar of the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) outlined a number of reasons why the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (BSSEE) should be scrapped. While Dr Didicus Jules is recommending the replacement of the BSSEE by the CXC’s Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), the whole debate about the fate of this examination is very old
and there have been many suggestions as to what the alternative should be.
The article on the front page of the said SUNDAY SUN did not give Barbados a good public in terms of our boasted leadership in regional education, in suggesting that we are falling behind in terms of our failure to give careful and active consideration to CXC’s proposal for replacing what has been dubbed by many leading professionals as a “sacred cow” that should long have been “slaughtered”.
But our local educational administrative agency, now the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), needs no counsel. For years now, successive ministers of education have either proposed ideas for replacement or set up committees to examine the pros and cons of this long dreaded examination. In fact, now that the name of the central administrative arm has been changed by the addition of the word “Innovation”, this is the opportune moment for a change in our assessment procedure for transfer from primary to secondary education.
The ministry has already publicly spoken to the flaws of the test and has articulated the adverse effect it continues to have on the perception of schools and quality of our education. Again I refer to the Education Sectoral Plan 1993-2000 which was published in August 1993. It states: “There is a growing recognition that the [BSSEE] . . . exerts adverse effects on curriculum, instruction, pupil achievement and ultimately the quality of education.” It continues: “Preparation for the BSSEE is associated with restrictive teaching methodologies, disproportionate time allocated to mathematics and English on the curriculum, neglect of pupils with learning difficulties and limiting the creative potential of pupils.” The question is: how can we admit such deep-seated and fundamental flaws of the BSSEE ever since 1993, and yet in 2013, we persist with its use as a transfer mechanism to secondary school?
My own position as an educator of close to four decades is that given current educational provisions, we need neither the BSSEE nor the CPEA. All that is required is for students to attend the secondary school nearest to their residence. Each primary school will forward with each student on transfer, a record of their performance that would simply inform their secondary school of their academic status. This would reduce the nonsense of students living in St Philip having to criss-cross the country to attend Alexandra or Grantley Adams Memorial. More importantly, it would give each secondary school a boost, as many of them now suffer a depressed public image due to no fault of their own, but simply because of the fact that both the so-called ‘bad’ or ‘good’ schools are creatures of the system. The same system that guarantees the high-profile success of Harrison College also determines that other schools, no matter how hard their work, will still be seen and perceived as the dump-heaps of failure.
In spite of all the available recommendations and alternative suggestions, I am not hopeful that “conservative” Barbados will ever change the BSSEE. The elites of Barbados will remain the chief proponents of the status quo because it suits their interests. They will never want to be accused of “kicking down” the ladder by which they have risen. It is my firm belief that the abolition of the Common Entrance Exam will not diminish the academic potential of our students.
In conclusion, Mr Jules and the CXC can keep their CPEA while we dump our BSSEE and stop the annual charade that has nothing to do with children or students but everything to do with parents believing that they all have the same chance at accessing the limited places in the system-created, “so-called” prestigious schools. It is time to stop telling a few students that they are the best things since sliced bread while telling the majority that they will always be second-best.
• Matthew Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education, and a social commentator.
