Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

If it succeeds in forming the next government, the People's National Party (PNP) says it will implement some key recommendations by the Task Force on Educational Reform to better prepare students for the labour market.

Speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum, on the weekend, Minister of Education, Maxine Henry-Wilson, disclosed that two years would be added to students' school life to lift the school-leaving age from 15 to 18 years old, while students would be given more school-leaving certification options.

Two more school years

The task force had recommended that two more school years be added to the life of every child after basic school - a kindergarten or K level before grade one, and a grade 12 at the secondary level. The levels should increase children's school life from 11 years to 13 years.

"[For] children, the transition is traumatic for them from a little school to a big school. So the K is the transitional year, where you do all the things to get them acclimatised to a different environment," Henry-Wilson explained.

The extra year at the secondary level, which is separate from a sixth form, will not only produce more mature students for the present working environment, but will also provide students with options to the current Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams, argued Henry-Wilson.

"Students may opt to take a school-leaving exam, which might not necessarily be CXC, because the world is going i pathways," explained the education minister.

Certification options

Among the certification options students will have is the National Vocation Qualifications through HEART Trust/National Training Agency certification and the regional Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) examinations. The CCSLC has been commissioned as a school-leavers' examination.

According to the minister, the introduction of options is to facilitate students who prefer the technical areas and provide a measurement of their competence.

"Let's not just measure it by CXC (only), but at the same time, there needs to be some standards and that is what the whole issue of having an assessment attempts to accomplish," Henry-Wilson commented. "So we are adding two years, one at the front and one at the end, and students can have many options in terms of taking their examinations," she added.

In addition, the PNP says it will be looking into conferring pre-university status on sixth forms.

"Sixth form is really pre-university. So we are trying to work for an integration that once a student gets to grades 12 and 13 in the sixth-form mode - and we may change the name - they are given credits at university level," Minister Henry-Wilson disclosed.