Reflecting on CSEC results

TTUTA

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to all students who would have been successful in this year’s CSEC examinations. These commendations should also be extended to those teachers who would have worked tirelessly to ensure that their charges were brought up to the requisite standard to achieve success.

We also extend commiserations to the parents of these students, for without their concerted efforts these students would not have been able to make themselves, their teachers and parents proud. We wish that these students will go on to achieve greatness in their chosen fields and make a significant contribution to the growth and development of the society.

However, one of the headlines that engaged national attention was the high number of students who fell below the requisite standard to achieve a passing grade in any subject.

This would have come as no surprise to most school officials. These students would have been flagged early on as underachieving but were unfortunately beyond the reach of teachers owing to their socio-economic backgrounds and lack of specialised support.

Most of these students would have attended school irregularly due to financial and other social constraints, were not always able to get the requisite home support or may have had some form of learning deficiency that was not adequately addressed during their years of schooling.

Either way, these students would not have been able to complete and submit school-based assessments, nor would have been performing well in internal examinations and therefore could not realistically stand a chance of success.

The examination told us nothing new. In the past such students would not have been automatically registered for the examinations for obvious reasons. The professional judgment of teachers was respected enough to cause savings to the taxpayer. This information would have been clearly communicated to both student and parent by school officials early on and was in many instances used as leverage by school officials to get students to exert a greater effort where possible.

Many school officials would lament that parents would insist that students are registered to sit the examinations, despite consistent poor performance. While many school officials are cognisant of the socio-economic realities of many students and their parents, there is also the belief that the effort being exerted is deficient.

Consequently, the premium and value placed on the acquisition of a good education is almost non-existent. The fact that the State expends significant amounts of money on the provision of secondary education for all including the cost of sitting the CSEC examinations is sometimes lost in a society that can take rights and privileges for granted too often.

Given the new economic realities and the calls by many for better value for money and improved returns on our investment in education, the policy of the Ministry of Education to automatically register all students for the CSEC examinations should be revisited.

School officials should have a say in recommending those students who are ready to sit the examinations as was done in the past. Those parents who insist otherwise would have been made to pay for sitting the examination and if the child was successful would have been refunded.

Political decisions affecting education carry huge financial and social implications for the country and politicians would be well advised to remember this.

There is also the absurdity of Form 5 students being allowed to sit the CSEC January examinations free as well. Many decide that because it’s free they just sit for the sake of it.

This practice has been severely hampering teachers in their preparations of the students for the May/June sitting and must be reviewed by the authorities since it can be considered by many as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The monies saved by ensuring that the State pays for students to sit the examinations when they are ready can be used to bolster the social support systems for underachievers that will in turn enhance their capacity to achieve success in said examinations.

Many students take the opportunity to sit the examination for granted to the point where they don’t bother to show up for the examination at all, or would show up and write little or nothing on their scripts. This is a sad state of affairs and the Minister of Education would be well advised to consult with stakeholders as a first step to ensuring the State gets value for money.