Martin Henry THE GOVERNMENT has gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to develop a National Assessment Programme as part of the reform of primary education. You may have some idea of how your child is doing in school. But do you have any idea how your child's school is doing, or how her teacher and principal are doing?
Earlier this month I sat in on The Gleaner Editors' Forum which probed the role played by international donors in supporting education in Jamaica. One of the intriguing questions which went unasked, and therefore unanswered, in the discussion with the USAID, the IDB and the PIOJ, was how Government justified borrowing money for education and how they proposed to pay it back.[The best questions pop into mind after meetings are over!]
There has been precious little effort to measure educational outcomes and even less effort to link outcomes to economic performance. And with very little to show for economic growth in a generation how do loans for education get paid back? Grants are nice!
We have preferred to measure input, from the famous listing of dead-end Junior Secondary schools "built by Labour" in the 1960s to the expansion of access without quality in the 1990s cited by the PIOJ on behalf of the Government at the Forum. To be fair, there is growing recognition of the need to measure output, and we now have some powerful tools for doing so. The taboo questions of value for money, which regards education as an investment not a welfare service, and of worker performance and accountability in the system are fighting their way on to the agenda of debating educational change despite determined resistance from some power centres.
WHAT IS NAP?
So what is NAP, and how does it work? The Ministry of Education answers those questions on its website and in booklet form but not loudly enough. I will give you some of those answers here:
What is the National Assessment Programme?
It is a programme to monitor how well Grade One through to Grade Six (6 year-old to 11-year-old) students are learning throughout the years of primary level schooling.
What does the National Assessment Programme do?
The programme provides tests for schools to use with students in Grade One, Grade Three, Grade Four and Grade Six. It also trains teachers on-the-job, to prepare and use tests and other assessments, to keep better records, to report how well students are doing and to use the results of tests and assessments. The programme provides schools with better facilities to reproduce materials.
How does the Programme work?
The programme provides national tests, teacher training and equipment.
On what are the tests based?
The test papers are based on the work that students should be doing in school, as outlined in the national curriculum guides.
In what areas are students tested?
At Grade One: The Grade One Readiness Inventory is given to find out which of the basic skills students have when they first enter primary school.
At Grade Three: At the end of Grade Three, the Grade Three Diagnostic Tests in Mathematics and Language Arts (including writing) are given.
At Grade Four: At the end of Grade Four, students are given the Grade Four Literacy Test-.
At Grade Six: Near the end of Grade Six, students are given the Grade Six Achievement Tests (GSAT) in Mathematics, Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Writing.
How will the tests help students?
All the tests given under the programme will tell students, teachers and parents how well a student is performing for his/her age and grade level. The teacher and principal can use these results to identify the areas in which the student is doing well, and the areas in which she/he needs more assistance. They can then work with parents to correct any weaknesses that students may have.
Students, having benefited from these corrections, should perform well during, and at the end of primary schooling, and should be able to cope more easily with work at the secondary level.
As it is set out here the NAP is virtually only about what the student can or cannot do and how to fix the student. But the NAP provides, for the first time at last, a potent tool for assessing the entire primary system of education. Teacher performance, School performance and Ministry performance can now have some numbers attached to them from standardized, curriculum-based tests. In just about every line of business, workers and management are also assessed and not just the product. What is the rational basis for exempting education?
Nothing will improve the performance of the system better than the public availability of NAP scores with comparative analysis. Different performance under similar circumstances would have to be explained. An illuminating light would be shone on teachers, principals and Ministry policy and action as the veil of secrecy is ripped away. Parents too would come into the searchlight of scrutiny over their children's performance.
We have a big tool, bought for millions of loan dollars which the children now in primary education will have to pay back. Let's use it to help them better!
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
