Edwin Allen High Back on Track Under National School Learning Intervention Plan

In the 2024, when the mathematics pass rate at Edwin Allen High School plummeted to 25.4 per cent, the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information decided to intervene.

The decision was made to place the Clarendon-based institution under the National School Learning Intervention Plan (NSLIP), with targeted approaches to improve results.

Fast forward to 2025 and the institution is celebrating a 74.1 per cent pass rate in the subject in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), topping the 56 institutions under NSLIP.

Principal, Jermaine Harris, tells JIS News that the entire school community is ecstatic.

“We did say to the Ministry that this year we will improve to 50 per cent, but we didn’t see 70 per cent coming. We wanted to at least move by 100 per cent and we surpassed that significantly. It was a joyous moment for us as a school, and we are still riding on the success of our maths pass rate, and English as well,” Mr. Harris says.

Developed by the Ministry to address significant learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, NSLIP provides a framework for school leaders to support students in getting back on track with their studies.

It focuses on improving academic performance in the core subjects of mathematics and English and involves a set of strategies that are customised to support students’ learning needs.

Among the strategies are extended teaching time, summer school, extra lessons and homework programmes, and provision of digital resources.

It also includes psychosocial support, parental engagements, strict monitoring of attendance, and a robust accountability framework.

Before COVID-19, the pass rate at Edwin Allen averaged 78 per cent to 80 per cent.

“We decided that we have to now have a recovery programme,” Mr. Harris tells JIS News.

“We started that recovery before but we accelerated it last year (2024), and we decided that we are going to do some things differently. So, we got the parents on board and the students that were selected for the sitting of maths,” he notes.

“We decided that we are going to have extra lessons, so we have extended learning, starting from early in the morning. Before school started at 8:00 a.m., we had a one-hour class from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., and then we had extended learning beyond the 2:00 p.m. end of school.

“We also had classes online, where students would now meet their teachers [virtually] and we would also have camps, where we had students coming in and staying extra hours. We would also bring in persons from outside to help with those camps,” Mr. Harris shares.

As it relates to English, he says that while it was not part of the tactical approach, there was also an improvement from 79 per cent in 2024 to 84 per cent this year.

“We saw a major improvement, which is just around the national pass mark for the country, and maths moved significantly above the national pass rate, which is about 44 per cent,” Mr. Harris reports.

The Principal shares that when news of the achievement surfaced “it was really a celebratory moment for us”.

He admits that when Edwin Allen was brought into the NSLIP – which was based on the CSEC results and the National Education Inspectorate (NEI) report – “it was not a pleasant moment for the school leadership, as the feeling was that Edwin Allen should not be in any conversation as an underperforming school”.

He notes, however, that rather than hanging their heads in shame and defeat, the school took action with a determination to put the measures in place to achieve success.

In terms of individual results, the Principal says that there are approximately 60 students who passed five subjects or more inclusive of maths and English, with several students earning grade ones.

He informs that Edwin Allen High placed fifth among the 18 schools in region seven in terms of passes.

Proud of the turnaround, the Principal tells JIS News that the institution will continue the recovery programme “because we are still recovering”.

“We will look at the areas that are not at the benchmark that we set as a school, and then we replicate what we would have done with maths and English for the other subjects, so that all the subjects that we offer we can at least be at that 70 per cent benchmark,” Mr. Harris tells JIS News.

The Principal lauds the 40 teachers for their dedication and parents for supporting the school. “We are seeing more parents understanding that it is really a partnership,” he says/

Former Deputy Head Girl at Edwin Allen high, Shanika Crosdale, says, “It is very good to see our school going from a 25 per cent for the pass rate in maths to all the way to 74 per cent.”

She commends the teaching staff, noting that “if it wasn’t for teachers, we wouldn’t have made it”.

Former Prefect, Rickoy Thomas, was pleased to have passed all eight subjects he sat and credited his teachers for their dedication and motivation.

For Head of the Mathematics Department, Sheldeen Simmonds Anderson, the improvement in the maths passes is rich reward for the hard work of the teaching staff.

“We are here six days of the week, even on a Sunday, and they [teachers] still find time to cater to students through online classes. I am not going to say that it was hard, but as a Department, we came together,” she shares.

She says that the teachers try to make the subject as relatable as possible to real-world situations.

“We have teachers who incorporate other subjects in the maths lessons. You are teaching physics, you are teaching the students a little bit of language, you are teaching them to interpret, to analyse, so that they can understand and go in the exams and not just pass math, but they can transition and pass other subjects as well,” she tells JIS News.

Head of the English Department, Andrea Longmore, for her part, says the “cadre of dedicated teachers don’t just teach English; we live the subject, and the energy transfers to our students. We allow them to realise that there is no career or skill that you can pursue in the future that you won’t require English Language to perform effectively. We sell the subject to them, so they know how valuable it is to do well in English.”

Edwin High School is a co-educational public secondary school located in Frankfield, with a student body of about 2,000.

The institution, whose motto is ‘Transeamus in Exemplum,’ which translates to ‘We Shall Be An Example’ is one of the top performers at the annual Inter-Secondary Schools Boys and Girls’ Championships.