Dear Editor,
It is quite worrisome that many of our Grade Six children in school who received their National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results only last week are depressed, discouraged, disappointed, angry and hopeless. These feelings come in the wake of the names of the schools placed on their result slips – schools which many of them in their minds have not accepted even now, more than a week later. Parents cannot bear to see the looks on their faces. Teachers of Grade Six and even the head teachers know fully well what has transpired, but if there was only a way that they could make the little ones understand that all hope is not lost.
A few years ago, the new placement system implemented by the Ministry of Education came into being after the Secondary Schools Entrance Exams (SSEE) was done away with. The traditional cut- off points for various secondary schools met their ends too. Little did the population, more particularly Grade Six students and their parents, know that the entire secondary placement system was revamped by the higher authorities within the ministry.
What happened the first year after the results came out under the new grading system was that parents flocked the various Departments of Education across the country, demanding explanations for the less-desired schools on the NGSA results slip. Last year, a parent literally came to my doorstep. She started to tell me that her daughter, who received her results for the Berbice Educational Institute (BEI) was distraught, not because she was going to BEI, but because her other friends in the same class received lower marks than she did and were offered places at New Amsterdam Multilateral (NAMS) and Berbice High School (BHS). Her daughter is not eating as usual, she related to me. She wanted me to do something. She said that there were more parents from the same school who had similar issues. She wanted me to advise them on what to do. I told her to check with the Department of Education in New Amsterdam.
She said that she did so and was told that there was nothing anyone could do. She wanted to form a team of parents to protest the schools her daughter and their children were offered. I supported her decision but later that week, she stated that she could not get the parents to agree to protest.
And so, this year is no different. Many children have been offered places at secondary schools that they believe they should not be attending. Many children have lower marks and are being offered places at more senior institutions as opposed to their counterparts who received higher marks and have to settle for other schools.
The sad thing is, how can you explain the placement system to parents and moreso the children? Surely the ministry could have dealt with the new system to the general public through consultations and even media advertisements. In addition, there are several schools which have been or are in the process of being re-graded, that is, their seniority and ranking have changed or are being changed. This is influenced by the number of students per school and moreso by the CXC examination results of the school. For instance, Queen’s College is now Guyana’s premier secondary school. We knew it always to be Presidents’ College. Berbice Educational Institute is now junior to Tutorial Academy Secondary School in Berbice; and NAMS and BHS are now on par with each other.
Our education planners and policy-makers want to make our system better. I believe that with all my heart. They are trying so many initiatives. For instance, they are beginning to train cadet officers in the various regions; employing more school welfare officers (at least I saw these being advertised for); literacy programmes are increasing across the country; introducing the Secondary Competency Certificate Programme (SSCP) to low achievers in secondary schools; and introducing the six-year secondary school programme beginning with Grade 7 remedial subjects. There is also the Literacy Hour in primary schools; interactive radio instruction in primary schools; text- book abundance at almost every level; a rigid school-feeding programme in the primary schools; numerous training workshops and seminars; a Summer remedial programme for all students gaining below 45% in secondary schools; non- graduate training programmes and distance education courses for teachers in English and Mathematics, and soon Sciences.
These are just a few of the Ministry of Education’s initiatives that are intended to perfect the education system in Guyana. Even so, I still believe that many of these initiatives are not meeting their objectives.
What are teachers supposed to do with students entering secondary school, or those who are in Grade 9 and 10 preparing for CXC exams and still cannot form letters or read properly? They (the teachers) are not magicians. What are teachers supposed to do in five hours a day with children whose minds are not geared towards academic studies but rather technical and practical skills, and who find practical subjects more appealing?
Those students are indeed wasting time in the public education system. It is totally unfair, this new grading and placement system for the NGSA. Our children are being robbed of their abilities and the walls around them are closing in because the schools many of them have been awarded provide little or no scope for some of them who are academically brilliant.
And for them to see their peers who achieved less than they having their hopes and dreams being realized as they go off to the schools of their dreams is just a slap in the face to all their hard work and determination throughout the six years of primary education. Bring back the old placement system, for it was a more practical system which worked for many, many years. Our children in the primary schools writing the NGSA all deserve the same fair chance to compete for the school of their choice, the school which ultimately will shape the rest of their lives, as it were. The system owes them that much.
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran
