Tobago lagging behind T’dad in education

Minority Councillor Dr Faith BYisrael says a critical analysis must be done on this year’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) results which showed “a chunk of students who are getting under 30 percent in that exam,” and she called for a review of programmes put in place to deal with this issue last year.

Last week Friday, Chief Secretary Kelvin Charles, who is also Secretary of Education, told Newsday Tobago that 167 students scored 30 per cent and under in this year’s SEA examination. Charles said of that number, 61 students who are under 13 years old, would use their second chance to take the exam next year while 106 students will be placed in secondary schools.

Charles also reported that 55 girls and 112 boys scored 30 per cent and under in the exam.

In 2017, 137 students scored 30 per cent and under in the exam – 55 of of whom 55 re-sat the exam this year. On Tuesday, BYisrael Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday at James Park in Scarborough, said an analysis must be done of this data to find the causes.“Those are the students that we have been trying to compare between Trinidad and Tobago, what’s going on in Trinidad and what’s going on in Tobago.”

She said nationally, approximately 13.6 percent of all of the students who wrote the SEA exam, got less than 30 percent.

“However, when we look at the Tobago numbers, the little that we’ve been able to gather, that is 17.7 percent of the Tobago population who did the exam got less than 30 percent. We are seeing where Tobago is lagging significantly behind the national average for that and we need to try to figure out why that is the cause.

“We also recognise that the person who was the top student in Tobago… was the 98th person nationally and was the only person within the top 100. This means that again, we seem to be falling back because if you look at the population size in Tobago, then rightly so, at least five of the top SEA students should be from Tobago, if we are on par nationally,” she said.

BYisrael called on Charles to say system was in place to treat with these low scoring students.

“… Chief Secretary basically said that there was a significant difference between the results we got last year and the results we’re getting this year. This shows that there is some cause for concern, it shows that whatever was put in place last year to help deal with the issues - with some of the retired teachers that they brought in, some of the remedial programmes that they put in place… did not work,” she said.

In July last year, Charles had announced various plans for underperforming SEA students, including training for teachers in both secondary and primary schools, along with assistance for students preparing to enter secondary school. Among these were a four-week programme – a Post-SEA programme- in which teachers at the Roxborough and Signal Hill Secondary schools were to interact with low scoring students, focussing on numeracy and literacy.

Teachers in primary schools were also to be trained - 30 teachers from 10 schools were enrolled in a “Leading for Literacy,” one-week programme in July last year.

In an interview with Newsday Tobago in July last year, Charles has said a ‘multidisciplinary approach” was needed to improve and rectify issues facing the education sector. He said part of this approach was the decision to discontinue the Secondary School Remedial Programme, and instead implement a community programme to empower young people struggling in school to develop informal skills to certification level. The community programme was to include training and literacy assistance from social workers, members of the community, the Division of Education and other volunteers, and would include a developmental programme, particularly in the areas of Mathematics and Reading for primary schools.

Charles assured then that in three years, Tobago’s education sector would show significant improvement in its performance throughout Trinidad and Tobago.