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THE man who designed the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) is insisting that if education policymakers had followed the original plan under which the test should have been implemented, there would be less fuss about it now.
Dr Fitz Russell, retired regional director in the Ministry of Education and the first co-ordinator of the National Assessment Programme (NAP), said that advice against using the GSAT as a placement for students moving up to the secondary education level was ignored.
RUSSELL... we wanted a test that was fit for purpose, that would do the job to evaluate children’s learning (Photo: Naphtali Junior)
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The veteran educator, who was a guest at the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper's Beechwood Avenue headquarters yesterday, said that the political administration of the 1990s went ahead and introduced the GSAT in a way that it was not intended.
"We wanted a test that was fit for purpose, that would do the job to evaluate children's learning, to allow us to give feedback to teachers. It was never about placement," Dr Russell said.
"The issue of placement is the issue of economics, policy and politics. We had given the best advice in terms of how to produce a cohort of children, who had achieved your objectives for primary and would benefit maximally from secondary. We were not seeking to solve the minister's problem, and the planning functions problem," he told editors and reporters.
The GSAT project was worked on between 1988 and 1998 when the Ministry of Education decided to go fully into it as the method of placing students into secondary schools. It was introduced for the first time in 1999.
"In 1988, we started work and shortly after, then Minister of Education Dr Neville Gallimore went somewhere and made the announcement that the GSAT was going to be used for placement.
"At that time, we had not even done the first trial and I went to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Cecil Turner, and told him that I had noticed the report and told him that it was not good advice, because we did not know how the test would function, and we did not know how the items would function," Dr Russell said.
"I said at the time that to make certain decisions about children and their future would be a wrong and invalid use of this test. He (Turner) said I would have to go to the minister and convince him. We had a meeting and talked about it and then I went to Minister Gallimore and spoke about it. To his credit, I never heard anything else about it until he left office in 1989," Dr Russell stated.
However, by 1992, the new government had started to speed up plans to replace the Common Entrance, which started in 1958, with the GSAT as both an assessment and placement-based examination, despite the objection of Dr Russell and some of his technical colleagues.
"By the 1990s, the GSAT fell right into the plans of then Education Minister Carlyle Dunkley and his State Minister Burchell Whiteman. We did object, but you can object so much and no more," Dr Russell said.
"The Common Entrance was an age-based exam, the GSAT was curriculum-based.
"One of the problems you had with the Common Entrance Exam was as soon as you reached a certain age you could take it.
"Approximately half of the children were getting placed from grade five, 20 per cent from grade four and 30 per cent from grade six. You therefore take out the brighter children at grade four, but the implication is that you skip two years of critical information in Mathematics, because how the curriculum was structured then, place value was taught in grade five for the first time, so a child was leaving primary school without learning place value. Is it any wonder that at the high schools, that was the biggest problem that people faced?" he asked.
"If you have not mastered the concept of place value, there is very little else you can do or learn in Mathematics. This was one of the advantages of being curriculum-based and everybody going up to grade six.
"If you go to grade six, then you have a better chance of learning all the concepts in Math, English and so on and you are more likely to do well, just by virtue of the fact that you have been introduced to these concepts right through," Dr Russell said.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz1ytInp62D
Dr Fitz Russell, retired regional director in the Ministry of Education and the first co-ordinator of the National Assessment Programme (NAP), said that advice against using the GSAT as a placement for students moving up to the secondary education level was ignored.
RUSSELL... we wanted a test that was fit for purpose, that would do the job to evaluate children’s learning (Photo: Naphtali Junior)
1/1
The veteran educator, who was a guest at the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper's Beechwood Avenue headquarters yesterday, said that the political administration of the 1990s went ahead and introduced the GSAT in a way that it was not intended.
"We wanted a test that was fit for purpose, that would do the job to evaluate children's learning, to allow us to give feedback to teachers. It was never about placement," Dr Russell said.
"The issue of placement is the issue of economics, policy and politics. We had given the best advice in terms of how to produce a cohort of children, who had achieved your objectives for primary and would benefit maximally from secondary. We were not seeking to solve the minister's problem, and the planning functions problem," he told editors and reporters.
The GSAT project was worked on between 1988 and 1998 when the Ministry of Education decided to go fully into it as the method of placing students into secondary schools. It was introduced for the first time in 1999.
"In 1988, we started work and shortly after, then Minister of Education Dr Neville Gallimore went somewhere and made the announcement that the GSAT was going to be used for placement.
"At that time, we had not even done the first trial and I went to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Cecil Turner, and told him that I had noticed the report and told him that it was not good advice, because we did not know how the test would function, and we did not know how the items would function," Dr Russell said.
"I said at the time that to make certain decisions about children and their future would be a wrong and invalid use of this test. He (Turner) said I would have to go to the minister and convince him. We had a meeting and talked about it and then I went to Minister Gallimore and spoke about it. To his credit, I never heard anything else about it until he left office in 1989," Dr Russell stated.
However, by 1992, the new government had started to speed up plans to replace the Common Entrance, which started in 1958, with the GSAT as both an assessment and placement-based examination, despite the objection of Dr Russell and some of his technical colleagues.
"By the 1990s, the GSAT fell right into the plans of then Education Minister Carlyle Dunkley and his State Minister Burchell Whiteman. We did object, but you can object so much and no more," Dr Russell said.
"The Common Entrance was an age-based exam, the GSAT was curriculum-based.
"One of the problems you had with the Common Entrance Exam was as soon as you reached a certain age you could take it.
"Approximately half of the children were getting placed from grade five, 20 per cent from grade four and 30 per cent from grade six. You therefore take out the brighter children at grade four, but the implication is that you skip two years of critical information in Mathematics, because how the curriculum was structured then, place value was taught in grade five for the first time, so a child was leaving primary school without learning place value. Is it any wonder that at the high schools, that was the biggest problem that people faced?" he asked.
"If you have not mastered the concept of place value, there is very little else you can do or learn in Mathematics. This was one of the advantages of being curriculum-based and everybody going up to grade six.
"If you go to grade six, then you have a better chance of learning all the concepts in Math, English and so on and you are more likely to do well, just by virtue of the fact that you have been introduced to these concepts right through," Dr Russell said.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz1ytInp62D
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