EDUCATION Minister Priya Manickchand announced yesterday that, from September, the automatic promotion and grade retention policy which had been in use over the past two years, will be revised.

She said, following countrywide consultations with critical stakeholders, a review of that procedure revealed that it was not popular with any of them.
Addressing members of the media at the Ministry’s monthly press conference, in the boardroom of the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), in Kingston, Georgetown, Manickchand said a new system has been crafted, which places emphasis on ensuring that students do not have to repeat subjects they mastered.
However, it would make sure that they did well in those that are essential for matriculation, which, when used in this context, is defined as the attainment of marks that would allow a student to graduate as well as attain entrance into the University of Guyana (UG), with the required passes in five Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects at one sitting, inclusive of Mathematics and English Language.
The Minister said this different approach requires a student to repeat the grade if he/she scores below the overall pass mark set by the school in more than 50 percent of the subjects and also if the reason for this underachievement is unsatisfactory performance in Mathematics and/or English Language.

STATISTICS SHOW
Manickchand explained, further, that the aim of this change is to help students succeed at English and Mathematics, since statistics show that, while schools attain 100 percent passes in many CSEC subjects, the matriculation rate is unsatisfactory due to  poor pass rates in English language and Mathematics.
She said a student who masters these two core subjects can choose any other subject areas of his/her preference and will be instructed in a manner that will make it more likely for he or she to achieve pass marks.
Manickcand related that, if the reason the student fails to achieve the overall pass mark is as a result of any subject apart from the two core subjects, the individual will not be asked to repeat the grade but rather to drop the subject.
The Minister pointed out that Guyana’s education system uses the spiral curriculum which means that, to a large extent, the topics across grades are the same but the scope, depth and width increases from one grade to another.
“It is, therefore, important for a student to master the curriculum content and skills of the previous grade in order to understand that of the following grade,” she noted.
Manickchand observed that, traditionally, students who fail to achieve the overall pass mark set by their schools were made to repeat the grade and in all subjects, inclusive of those in which he/she may have done exceptionally well.
She said this led to students dropping out of school through boredom from having to do subject matters they would have already mastered or the embarrassment of having to be in the same class with much younger students.
The automatic promotion was introduced to correct the negative effects of grade repetition and, through it, all students were promoted to the next grade, regardless of their performance in the annual assessments.