THE results of the much anticipated National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) released last Friday, generally reflect good news for the Ministry of Education, but points to the need for much more work to be done.
From the information provided by the media, the results over the years in the core subjects offered at the examinations, namely Mathematics, English, Science and Social Studies have been way below expectations.

The results this year show a positive turn with improvements recorded in all the subject areas due to commendable work from education administrators, teachers and parents in pushing the students to give their all.
The end result of their hard work saw the pass rate of mathematics jumping from 13 per cent in 2016 to 45 per cent this year, the highest overall pass rate ever recorded in this problematic subject area.

Aside from Mathematics, the pass rate in English moved handsomely from 45 per cent last year to 54 per cent this time around and Science leaped from a 27 per cent pass rate in 2016 to 44 per cent this year. Only social studies recorded minimal improvement, an increase of one per cent from last year but still, the overall pass rate of 47 per cent was not that bad.
The overall results in terms of improvement tell a positive story, but it also show that more than 50 per cent of pupils in the primary school system still fail to obtain a pass grade (50 per cent) in Mathematics, Social Studies and English.

While the marked improvement is a cause to celebrate, it must be tempered, since going forward, in order to keep up the trend of success, there must be no room for complacency. Parents and teachers must from early motivate their charges to make their best leap forward in next year’s examinations.
From reports in the media, the success at this year’s examinations appears to have stemmed from team work with parents encouraging and supporting their children and teachers improving their quality of delivery in the classroom.

And of course the government had stepped in, engaging the Caribbean Examinations Council to improve the quality of the grade assessments and subsequently launched the Emergency Mathematics Intervention Plan.
Under this well thought-out strategy, teachers were trained in content and methodology and regular cluster meetings were held in each administrative region. Mathematics coordinators and monitors were also recruited, officers and school administrators were trained to supervise the teaching of mathematics and a diagnostic assessment was done on pupils in the hinterland regions.

And bingo! Students’ performance in Mathematics improved by more than 30 per cent, Science about 20 per cent, Social Studies students came close to 50 per cent and English crossed the 50 per cent mark for the second time in a decade.
These results indicate that through collaborative efforts a strategy can work and seem to indicate the need for the Ministry of Education to pay greater attention to the National Grade Two and Grade Four Assessments.

There would be no need for quick fixes or interventions as they are commonly called, if teachers in the primary school system use these assessments as diagnostic tools rather than mere exams. The purpose of these assessments is to identify weaknesses in students and correct them before they enter Grade Six, so that they would be able to do well at the National Grade Six Assessment and that there would be minimum failures.
This is a system already in place, and it is now up to the Ministry of Education to make it work the way it was intended when it was crafted about a decade ago.

That said, now that the results are out, there is no time for the ministry to relax as its focus now should be to upgrade as many as possible of the 55 per cent and 44 per cent of students respectively, who fail to grasp basic concepts of literacy and numeracy at this year’s NGSA, to secondary school standards. This approach is necessary if students are to do better in Mathematics and English at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), where performance in these two subjects remains dismal.