PEP revised to single exit test

Students will now only sit the Ability Test, rescheduled to May 26, 2021 after the education ministry held talks again with key stakeholders in the sector.

All other components of the annual exam have been scrapped for this year, however, results from these students PEP Grade 4 Performance Task will form part of their overall scores to determine placement in high school.

“So we will combine the results of the Ability Test to be taken on Wednesday, May 26, 2021 with the results of the Grade 4 Performance Task that students would have sat in 2019,” Education Minister Fayval Williams announced during today’s Post Cabinet Press Briefing.

The minister added: “Parents already have those Grade 4 scores and so they know the stage at which their child is…

“We have data that is guiding us regarding the Grade 4 Performance Task and the Ability Test to reliably place our students in high school.”

Hundreds of thousands of students have had their education disrupted severely by the pandemic, according to Jasford Gabriel, who is the president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA).

Gabriel said the decision was inevitable due to the continuous rise in Covid cases on the island which currently stands at over 26,000 reported infections.

“This announcement could have been made a lot earlier so that the anxiety could have eased. The reality is that quite a few schools were making the effort to bring out their students even without approval because as far as they were concerned the ministry was moving full speed ahead, and their students need to get ahead of the game, their students need to get quality placements in high school and they felt it wasn’t fair for others to gain an unfair advantage,” Gabriel stated while speaking on Power 106 FM This Morning with host Sanjay Lewis.

A similar approach was taken last year to place students because of the rapid spread of covid-19 around the globe.

The onset of Covid has created a major gap in learning, setting back some students by at least a year. But in order to bridge this chasm, Williams told the country “that the ministry will administer diagnostic tests” for grade six students, the data from which will be shared with all high schools.

“You may be aware that the National Standards Curriculum allows for the aspects of the curriculum that were not covered at the primary level to be covered at the secondary level at grade seven,” she noted.

There is still a great deal of uncertainty in the months ahead whether if the PEP Ability Test will happen in May. And if cases are still uncontrollably high by then, a third adjustment is inevitable.