PRIVATE SCHOOLS DOMINATING the list of top 10 achievers in this year’s Common Entrance Exam showed a commendable diversity in the island’s educational system.
This was the assessment of Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education Senator Harcourt Husbands yesterday after touring the Wills Primary School at Maxwell, Christ Church.
Six private school students were in the top 10 places of the examination.
Husbands, who has been touring private schools, said the results proved that the variety of schools in the private sector enhanced the education offerings in Barbados.
Husbands said that whether the top student derived from a private school or a Government school was not the important issue, but rather, “how the students are performing overall”.
“It is our Barbadian children and we are in the service of education in Barbados. What this emphasizes though is the diversity and the variety that is available for parents in Barbados and that outside of the Government schools there are some very well organised and very capable schools in the private sector,” he said.
The Parliamentary Secretary said that he was highly impressed with the organization of Wills Primary School.
Principal Nicole Wills said that the 15-year-old school which grew from three students to its current roll of 213 constantly performed well and particularly held its own in the Common Entrance.
She said the school had a tremendous waiting list, but had not intended to expand in the near future.
“We started from a school where nobody knew we existed to a school where when you call its name people say yes I know that school,” said Wills.
Co-principal Julia Franklyn said she believed that private schools enhanced the education system and stressed that Wills followed the ministry’s guidelines.
“We are not here to compete with the Government schools. We are here to enhance the system and we do know that there is a burden and there is a load so we are here to work together and not to compete to say that the private schools are better than the Government schools,” said Franklyn. (AH)
