– exciting way of informing top performers planned
THE Ministry of Education is working to have the results of the National Grade Six Assessment Examinations (NGSAE) released sometime this week.
The NGSAE was written last April by more than six thousand students nationwide. The Guyana Chronicle was informed that the results should be ready by this coming Friday, but the possibility exists that the date could be even earlier.
The Examinations Division of the Ministry of Education, sometime last week, informed the Education Ministry that fine-tuning of the results will likely be this week.
This publication was informed that the way the results are released and the method of informing the top placers will be different from the way it was done over the years.
Efforts by the Chronicle to get information on how exactly the releasing of the results will be handled were not successful.
There are speculations of a number of ways the Ministry plans to release the results this year. One view is that the ministry will be broadcasting the results live on television and radio. There is also the view that the Minister of Education may be visiting the schools and/or students of the top performers to break the news to them. Another view is that there is likely to be a celebration in the form of a ball at which the top performers will be announced.
Speaking with Education Minister Priya Manickcand recently about the issue, she was not willing to disclose any of the Ministry’s plans in relation to the releasing of the results, but mentioned that the releasing of the results this year will be different, and in a way that can best be described as exciting.
The NGSAE was written on April 4 and 5 by students from all primary schools across the country. The examination challenges the students of grade 6 to recap all that they had learnt from grade one to grade six in the four core subject areas — Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science.
Upon completion of the examinations and announcing of the results, the students then qualify to enter a secondary school in keeping with their grades achieved at the examination.
Over the years, those earning themselves high grades at the examinations have been receiving placements in some of the country’s top schools, among which are Queen’s College in Georgetown; President’s College on the East Coast of Demerara; Berbice High School and the New Amsterdam Multilateral School in New Amsterdam; as well as other recognized schools in various regions of the country.
Prior to the introduction of the National Grade Six Assessment Examinations, students of grade six wrote an examination that was referred to as Secondary Schools Entrance Examination, or “common Entrance”, as it was commonly called.
Despite the change in names of the examinations, the goal remains the same, and that is why students of grade six have to sit an examination to allow them entry into a secondary school.
There were and still are some schools which are called community high schools. Those schools consist of primary and secondary departments. The aim is to allow students who did not acquire enough marks to gain entry into a secondary school to still have a secondary education.
Though considered a lower level of secondary education by some persons, the children would then join the first form of the secondary department of the school, where they would continue until they reach the fifth form, at which time they would be required to sit another examination, called the Caribbean Entrance Examination, or CXC. The teaching, however, and syllabus were no different from what had been taught at the schools with exclusive secondary departments.
That examination continues today, but like the SSEE, it has changed its name. The examination is now called the Caribbean Secondary Examination Council and it is the final examination that is written by students to complete their secondary education.