St Catherine principals support delaying PEP Ability Test

“My take on the matter is that the children are not ready, and even if they are ready academically… I really think that there should be some accommodation for the children to return to school for at least two weeks before the exams. Not just for the preparation of the exams itself but to re-socialise and reintegrate into the system,” said Calvin Harris, principal, Marlie Mount Primary and Infant School.

In its latest school bulletin issued last week the Ministry of Education announced a delay to the sitting of the Grade Six PEP Ability Test – the first in a series of the annual exam for students matriculating to secondary institutions.

The exam was originally scheduled for February 23, 2021 but will now happen on March 25, 2021.

Education Minister Fayval Williams said the general consensus to adjust the date was necessary to give more preparation time to students following extensive consultation with stakeholders over the last few weeks.

“We understand the challenges facing the education sector during this Covid-19 pandemic. We continue to work with the Ministry of Health and Wellness to ensure that more of our schools are inspected and that they attain a satisfactory report,” Minister Williams said.

Harris also put forward the view that getting students to adjust first to the modus operandi of a face-to-face setting in accordance with Covid19 protocols is extremely important, as unfamiliarity to this new norm would pose a lot of confusion, anxiety and stress to those returning for the first time only for the purpose of sitting an exam.

The government has been piloting a return to face-to-face learning in schools, however, approval must be given by the health ministry upon the institution meeting satisfactorily all criteria that mitigate the spread of the coronavirus linked to the death of more than 300 Jamaicans and infected over 15,000 people on the island.

Bois Content Primary School Principal Camilla Walsh Reynolds says she endorses the move by the ministry. She said the rural-based school with approximately 150 students enrolled had more than 70% online learning engagement through various modalities.

“We are grateful for the time extended so we are able to prepare our student to the best of our ability,” Walsh Reynolds told Old Harbour News. “We did have an end-of-term examination and it really showed the gaps in the system. Even though our students were engage online for most of the days… irrespective of that we saw the gaps where sometimes we had connectivity issues, some persons didn’t have the connection at home and sometimes the teachers’ internet would have been down.”

Old Harbour Primary have roughly 78 percent of its students frequently logged on for online classes, but that statistic only increased late last year, according to Principal George Goode.

“The Old Harbour Primary School welcomes the pushback of the grade six ability test,” said Goode. “This is due to the fact that a number of students did not start the online schooling on time due to lack of gadgets, lack of stable internet service or lack of internet service on a whole and so a number of students would have come on board only since January or later in the first full term which would have been November, December.”

Goode also shared the view posited by Harris that students preparing for the exam should be engaged in a simulation exercise prior to its sitting.

“To just take them up after not being in school for almost a year I think it is too drastic a change for the students. In addition to that I go further it is not just that they need to come in to practice but they also need to come in for practice test where it is done under exam conditions so that they are prepared for what they are going actually meet,” he reasoned.

The ministry’s decision comes on the heels of recent comments by Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Jasford Gabriel who stated 86 percent of 400 teachers surveyed islandwide say their students are ill-prepared to sit the exam.