THERE ARE REASONS why more than 1 000 Caribbean Examination Council subject entries were not taken and veteran educator Jeff Broomes said he was disappointed this was not made clear enough.
During a wide ranging media briefing on Tuesday in his office at Parkinson Memorial, the principal said each reason reflected failures on the part of both administrators, educators and students.
“The Minister of Education [Ronald Jones] spoke about the 1 365 subject entries not done but I was disappointed to see he did not say why. There are three reasons for that and if you leave that broad statement like that, it makes us look worse than we should,” he said.
As for one of those reasons, Broomes said some of the students had in fact already completed some of the examinations earlier in the year but this was not registered.
“Entries have to be in around November [for June the next year] but some children do the exams in January and pass so then of course don’t turn up in June but that still appears as absent on the script because it [the early examination] is not taken off and that is the ministry’s responsibility,” he said.
As for the others, Broomes said it came down to students not completing the required School Based Assessments (SBA) or simply getting cold feet.
“Some children know that when exam time comes, they have not done all the SBA’s they should have so going to do the exam would be a waste of time as they can’t pass and that is the school leaders’ problem – people like myself – because we have to be on top of the situation and make sure SBAs are done and children are ready for the exam.
“Thirdly, there are some children who are just not in the mood and feel they will fail so don’t leave home and that is a parental problem – you can’t live in my house and tell me you have a CXC but you aren’t in the mood and you aren’t going…what are you talking about? To a lesser extent [it is also] a teacher problem cause we have to motivate children to think positively,” he said.
Broomes said each of the scenarios could and needed to be addressed. On Friday Jones addressed the annual CXC results meeting where he spoke on the missing subject entries. He said he understood there were reasons but the number was too high and it was costing the region money. He also said it meant the education system was “leaking” children which could lead to social problems later. (CA)