Petrina Francis, Education ReporterTHREE WEEKS ago, after months of rigorous preparation, some 50,000 students sat the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT). But six years after it was first introduced to replace the Common Entrance Examinations (CEE), which for 58 years guided the placement of students in secondary schools, there is continuing controversy and concern about the equity and adequacy of the examination.
The GSAT is different from the CEE in that it assesses the material which is covered every day in primary school. Students are assessed on a wider range of subjects namely, mathematics, language arts, social studies,
science and communication tasks. This is a change from the CEE's multiple choice questions where students were evaluated on mathematics, English language and mental ability.
While the GSAT is often compared with the CEE, the Ministry of Education says it is unfair to make a comparison because the "CEE had its own purpose and had its own design". According to Sephlin Myers-Thomas, assistant chief education officer at the students' assessment unit in the Ministry of Education, the focus of GSAT is on curriculum attainment. After six years of exposure to the curriculum, students are assessed to determine their achievements and how ready they are to access the secondary curriculum, especially in social studies, science and communication tasks. These were not tested in the CEE.
PURPOSE OF SELECTION
Mrs. Myers-Thomas pointed out that the introduction of the GSAT was not to correct any ills of CEE. She said that the CEE served its purpose; it was a predictive kind of instrument with a purpose of selection.
But is the GSAT achieving its objectives? With a resounding 'yes', the Ministry of Education believes that the aims and objectives of GSAT are being met. Charlotte Lewis, senior education officer said there has been significant improvement in students' writing ability. She explained that when the test was first administered, it was reported that students were only writing one or two lines but now students are writing and expressing themselves better.
Hopeton Henry, principal of Seaforth High School in St. Thomas agrees. Mr. Henry said the wider spread of subjects that students do at GSAT, prepares them better to take on high school work.
Nevertheless, others argue that the GSAT is a re-brand of the CEE and nothing has changed. Ruel Reid, president-elect of the Jamaica Teachers' Association argues that the GSAT is not achieving its purpose. He explained that the exam has not had any fundamental changes from the CEE. He said that GSAT is a band-aid treatment and has failed miserably in achieving equity.
STUDENTS WHO CAN'T READ
In a Gleaner publication dated November 17, 2004, Dennis Kelly, principal of Charlie Smith High School blamed the poor Caribbean Secondary Examinations Certificate (CSEC) performance on the GSAT students that the school gets each year. "We get the bottom of the GSAT students. That is where we start, from students who can't read. They are dumped on us (and) we haven't got a choice but to take them," he said.
"To be honest, we have been given a raw deal in most areas," he remarked.
According to the 14-member task force on education, which was commissioned by the Prime Minister, "Physical access to
secondary schools is sometimes impeded because the location of schools is not proportionate to the population distribution, resulting in long travel times, exposure to danger and exorbitant transportation costs."
The report further stated that a number of GSAT students are placed in schools very far from home. The report therefore
recommended that distance from home to school when allocating GSAT places should be taken into consideration.
In an interview with The Gleaner, dated December 28, 2004, Lauriston Lindsay, principal of Happy Grove High School in Portland, said placing students in schools based on where they live 'is something that should be
pursued'. However, he warned that it was going to be difficult and would have to be done over time. He also noted that there were some areas, which have clusters of schools, which could be problematic.
Meanwhile, Edward Forbes, president of the Merl Grove High School parent-teacher association indicated in the same publication that he did not agree with the
recommendation. "I am a firm believer that a student should be placed in the school of his or her choice and according to the grade that the child gets in the examinations. If students are to be placed in schools according to their geographical location, all schools should have equality in terms of resources," he remarked.
But, one mother who resides in the rural area argued that she would not want her child to go to a school in the area in which she lives. The mother argued that she wanted her child to attend a traditional high school in Kingston.
The CEE was considered to be inequitable and one of the aims of the GSAT was to remove this inequality. However, despite the efforts, many people believe that the GSAT is just as inequitable as the CEE was.
There is evidence to suggest that top performing students are still being creamed off to the top schools while the non-traditional schools received the bulk of the poor performers.
This is usually reflected in the CSEC passes where schools, which get the top performers from the GSAT usually, outperform the schools that receive 'the poor performers'.
However, the Ministry of Education argues that the GSAT is an achievement examination and students are placed in schools electronically, based on choice, availability, and performance.
"We do not cream off students; students perform. It is totally up to students to perform given the kind of teaching learning environment and procedures that are utilised in the various schools. Students and parents have choice; they choose the schools, and they now have five choices", explained Mrs. Myers-Thomas. She said the ministry has no control over which school a child is sent to. Mrs. Myers-Thomas boasts of the integrity of the selection process and explains that the database is fed into a system, which is coded with students' identification numbers as opposed to their names, adding that this prevents favouritism because they are unaware of the students who are being selected for the different schools.
SECOND CHOICE
Ms. Lewis added that if a student's first choice is unavailable because of a lack of space, the computer goes to the child's second choice. If this fails, the process continues until it goes to the fifth choice. The senior education officer explained that if the student failed to be placed in any of the five choices, he or she is placed at a school in close proximity to the ones that were chosen.
The only students, who are placed in schools manually, she argued, are "the below-level performers."
One wonders, however, how influential the performance of the student is, in ensuring that he or she is given a place in the school of his or her choice.
Mr. Henry who is also the first vice-president of the association of principals and vice-principals is disputing the claim that students are selected on the basis of choice, availability and performance. According to Mr. Henry, he has seen cases where students who selected upgraded high schools as their choice were sent to traditional schools, sometimes against the wishes of the parents, because of the grades they got.
Mr. Henry pointed out that students with the top grades are still sent to the traditional high schools, questioning whether there was possibly a conspiracy with the ministry and those schools. He said this has been brought to the attention of the ministry but it has continued nonetheless. He said that the ministry is not abiding by the choice factor and is therefore calling for more equity in the placement process.
ADEQUATELY PREPARE STUDENTS
When the 2004, CSEC results were released, many teachers reported that they were not surprised at the grades that students got because it was the first set of GSAT students who sat the examination.
It is somewhat confusing, because if the GSAT was designed to adequately prepare students for the high school curriculum, how then were they performing so poorly when they got to that stage? Based on this, it does appear that the poor performance of students in the CSEC has nothing to do with GSAT. Students have been performing poorly at CSEC for a number of years.
The GSAT may not have solved the problems that existed in Common Entrance as many teachers, especially from the upgraded schools are complaining that they have to do a lot of 'value-added' to bring students up to 'an acceptable standard'.
One such school is Happy Grove High School. Of the more than 200 grade seven students, who were registered at the school last year, only 10 were reading at the required level. Teachers at the school were forced to introduce a number of remedial classes to address the problem.
It is arguable that after six years, the GSAT is proving to be a better examination than the CEE as students are now being exposed to more subjects. However, whether students are performing as they should, is a question that requires more study and in-depth discussion among the various stakeholders in education.
