51% of Tobago SEA low-graders take part in improvement project

Over 300 children have benefited from a project aimed at improving the performance of Tobago school students.

So said adviser to the THA Secretary of Education, Research and Technology Ann Natasha Second as she addressed Friday’s virtual post-Executive Council media briefing at the Shaw Park Cultural Complex.

IMPACT (Inspiring Matriculation through Performance Assessment and Curriculum Transformation) is a long-term performance-enhancement project geared toward improving students’ competencies.

Second said the programme catered to the island’s students who sat the 2022 Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination and scored less than 50 per cent. She said approximately 78.7 per cent of the students were eligible, but only 51 per cent of that figure participated.

She said through a collaborative, innovative and creative effort, a curriculum was delivered for four weeks.

“For this phase one cycle, students would have been exposed to literacy, enhancement, mathematics, English language, creative arts.

"They would have also done a number of technical vocational activities – dancing, drumming. We had table-setting. We had teachers among us who had skills like plumbing, and they would have introduced these students to these tasks.”

She said at the end of the session, there was an achievement day activity at each of the 20 centres.

“Of the entire 378 students who participated, all of them would have reported on that day how much of a positive impact this programme had on their life.”

She said the division will close off the first phase with a graduation ceremony.

The next phase will “develop a very professional network.

“For phase two, we are hoping to include teaching at the school to support the current system that we have from members who have been additionally trained or professionally trained to help students who need additional support with both reading and mathematics.”

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