Diagnostic Tests To Be Administered To Grade-Six Students

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Information will be administering diagnostic tests to grade-six students to identify and address gaps in the delivery of the National Standards Curriculum due to the restrictions caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19).

The pandemic led to the closure of school plants in March last year and the shift to online teaching and learning.

In November, the Ministry began the phased reopening of schools to facilitate face-to-face learning, but that has since been discontinued due to the increase in positive cases of the virus over the past weeks.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet press briefing on March 10, Portfolio Minister, Hon. Fayval Williams, said that the diagnostic instrument will be administered by classroom teachers.

She said that data from the assessment will be sent to the high schools in which the students are placed. The NSC allows for aspects of the curriculum that were not covered at the primary level to be dealt with at grade seven.

Mrs. Williams noted, however, that this would require an extension in the number of school days.

As such, she informed that the Ministry’s technical staff is preparing a retention document to lay out the criteria to be used by the Ministry to determine which students will be retained in their current class.

“Some of our students are going to repeat grades, so that they can get back to where they were before the pandemic. We know, as well, that we at the Ministry have to redouble our efforts to go beyond where we were when we started in the pandemic,” she said.

The Minister announced changes to the 2021 sitting of the Primary Exit Profile (PEP), to include the further postponement of the Grade Six Ability Test to May 26.

In addition, as was the case last year, there will be no Performance Task or Curriculum-Based Test.

Placement of students in high schools will be done using the May 26 Ability Test scores combined with the results of the Grade four Performance Task exams in Language Arts and Mathematics that the students would have taken in 2019.

Mrs. Williams noted that the measures being put in place by the Ministry, while not perfect, represent “a practical approach to ensure transition to high school in an equitable manner”.

“We know that many of our students were barely or not at all engaged with any of the modalities. There are some of our students who have not opened their books since this current year began. We know this because I was told of textbooks that are uncollected at schools and principals and teachers have been unable to reach parents or students. We realise that we are going to need a massive intervention programme for those students,” she pointed out.

Mrs. Williams said that the Ministry is committed to getting students to “connect again with schools and begin the journey towards recovery”.