The National Centre for Education Resource Deve-lopment (NCERD) says that the final examination for the National Grade Six Assess-ment is set for April.

According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release NCERD Director Mohandat Goolsarran said the Grade Six students were already assessed in grades two and four and these scores will be added to the final assessment to provide a profile of each child’s academic achievement upon leaving primary school. The results from this evaluation will be available in June. Goolsarran said the assessment, which replaces the Secondary Schools Entrance Examination, will determine the placement of students at secondary schools from September 2008.

Minister of Education Shaik Baksh, in Parliament on December 14, gave assurances that there are systems in place to safeguard the final assessment and that the scores for grades two and four are stored in a database. Baksh said the grades two and four assessments were marked by the regions’ senior teachers under the education departments’ direct supervision and later by the Regional Assess-ment Officers. Marking schemes and a manual for administering the assessment were provided as a guide to the evaluation process. The results were then given to NCERD along with a defined sample of scripts to be moderated to determine the level of compliance with the marking and administrative procedures for the two assessments.

GINA said the National Grade Six Assessment was implemented in 2003 when the first Grade Two assessment was conducted.