EDUCATION Minister Shaik Baksh declared yesterday that he stands behind the automatic promotion policy and it will remain in force.
His declaration was made after Headmaster of Christianburg/Wismar Secondary School, Mr. Cleveland Thomas insisted that he will not comply with the ‘No Child Left Behind’ edict and promote 30 first formers whom he called illiterate. The proposal presented to Parliament earlier this year stipulates that all students must be promoted.
“Many schools have left so many children behind,” Baksh lamented, pointing out that the directive was given for several reasons, primary among which is that, more often than not, when a child repeats a class, he becomes a dropout.
Thomas was summoned before the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) last week and that body found he was guilty of neglecting his duties when he failed to promote the 30 students.
The headmaster was accompanied to Georgetown by scores of irate parents who supported his position and protested outside the TSC office on Brickdam, Georgetown while a similar demonstration took place in Linden.
The protestors carried placards which read ‘Stop automatic promotion’, ‘Automatic promotion is bad for our future,’ ‘Promotion must be done by pass’ and ‘God don’t promote failures: why should we- No automatic promotion.’
However, the Minister criticised naysayers of the policy and said they are being oblivious of its thrust.
Baksh said students who have failed their end of year examinations should not be punished by making them repeat their class. He said about 80 per cent of them drop out of the school system.
According to him, they lose self-esteem and confidence after having to repeat the class and simply stop learning.
He said his ministry has institutionalised remediation programmes at grades eight and nine, in Mathematics and English during the school year, as well as during the August holidays, to specifically target those students.

Intention
Baksh said the intention of such interventions is to transform low achievers to acceptable secondary school standards.
He emphasised that headteachers and parents have a critical role to play in this process and the latter should be showing closer interest in their children’s education throughout, rather than at the end of the year when the child performs poorly.
Baksh said he is confident that, if this is done, students would perform better at school and there would be no cause for them to repeat classes.
He said the Ministry is aware of the high dropout rate of students between grades seven to nine and, in consideration of that incidence, has introduced the Secondary School Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP).
He said the SCCP is an important development in the education system, as it addresses the individual needs of students.
“The automatic promotion policy will continue,” Baksh reiterated.
“Schools have to get their acts together and look at the academic, technical and vocational needs of students,” he asserted.
He said the system of automatic promotion has prevailed for years at the primary levels and, to cater for those students who still need remediation, the Ministry introduced the six-year secondary programme.
Baksh said there are several programmes to support the automatic promotion policy, each aimed at keeping students in school through remediation and by offering alternatives to academically oriented courses.
“Even slow learners can continue to be certified,” he assured.