— primary schools to remain closed

THE Ministry of Education (MoE) has officially announced that the 2021 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) has been set for August 4-5; however, public schools will still remain closed at the primary school level until further notice.
The NGSA will include Paper One and Two as per normal but the tests will be set based on 20 week consolidated curriculums that the ministry has developed to fit the ongoing situation where the pupils remain out of school.
The pupils will be getting two mock examinations prior to the official NGSA sitting. Also to address the issue of equity in teaching and preparation for the examinations, the ministry will be issuing each pupil with learning packages that will include all of the weekly lesson notes, worksheets, NGSA past papers for the past five years and a host of all the necessary text books.
These developments were announced on Monday by Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, at a press conference at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) Building in Kingston.

The minister explained that the decision to go forward with the assessment was based on extensive consultations the ministry had with stakeholders at all levels.
“By far, for majority across all the stakeholder groups, parents and teachers, the preference was for us to have an exam, and that it be both paper one and two but up to the Grade Five level. So what informed our decision was what the particular stakeholders for this exam wanted,” the minister noted.
For cases of parents not in agreement with the sitting of the assessment, there will be an option for their children to opt out of the examinations.
“But they will be placed according to our policy for placement to give the [pupils] the national average for an exam,” the minister explained.

The NGSA is an annual placement examination customarily written in March/April, used to assign Grade Six pupils to a secondary school. The assessment involves the pupils writing examinations in Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science.  Some 14,300 pupils are scheduled to write the assessment this year.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused schools to be closed since March 2020, there had been some uncertainty surrounding the sitting of the assessment. In 2020, it was moved from originally being set for April to being written in July.
Due to the closure of schools, stakeholders have also been concerned about the preparedness of pupils for the examinations given their lack of face-to-face teaching. The current cohort of Grade Six pupils have never been in school since they started this level.
Minister Manickchand noted that while face-to-face teaching would be optimum, government has “spared no expense” in trying to ensure that all pupils are being engaged as they prepare.

“It’s very, very expensive and it can daunt any person, so I am happy to say I am part of the government who thought no expense should be spared in ensuring our children remain engaged. Text books alone are an extremely expensive enterprise, the printing of the worksheets is costly, the delivery has been costly. We need to make sure we watch our cost but no cost was spared to ensure we don’t have long lasting effects,” the minister noted.
“We will not be leaving our [pupils] and teachers alone. This is another measure towards applying that principle practically.”
The minister said measures will be put in place to ensure that once the pupils have completed their exams, that the textbooks are returned, so that they can continue to be utilised by future pupils.
As it pertains to those pupils at private schools, the minister noted that a care package will also be sent to each private school with Grade Six pupils for them to replicate and share with their pupils.

She noted; however, that where private school pupils are concerned, the schools have indicated their readiness for the assessment, given that most of them have managed to consistently engage their pupils even throughout the pandemic.
“Most of the private schools are ready for this exam right now,” she said.
The minister noted that some amount of training will be done with the Grade Six teachers for them to get a thorough understanding of what the consolidated curriculum will entail. The minister stressed that the new curriculum is simple a shortened version of the regular 40-week curriculum that the teachers customarily administer.

“The consolidated curriculum intends to ensure equity and equality in our education system. It is extracted from the existing curriculum and does not include any new concept. It distills the core skills and competencies appropriate for learners at the Grade Five level,” the minister said.
She explained that the consolidated curriculum also helps teachers to better understand the boundaries as they prepare learners for the NGSA.
“Related concepts were reorganised to allow them to appear together, which would make it easier for [pupils] to grasp what is being taught,” Manickchand explained.
Responding to questions about the reopening of schools, the minister reiterated that the decision continues to remain strictly based on direction from the Ministry of Health (MoH).

“We would like to get back into the classrooms. Not just the MoE, teachers are begging us to go back in to the classroom en masse, parents are asking us. But we are in a pandemic and that has specific consideration, any opening of school depends strictly on the MoH,” she affirmed.
However, she noted that the ministry is considering reopening schools in some remote areas where villages have noted that persons in the community interact with each other all of the time and therefore do not understand the need for schools to remain closed in their areas.