Student achievement in Jamaica - It's complicated!

[Karl]

The rise and fall of 'free education'Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Sunday | July 29, 2007

The history of 'free education' has become a quest for the Holy Grail in the context of the emergence of Jamaica from a subjugated slave colony to a country seeking upliftment through enlightenment and education.

Throughout the centuries of enslavement, the education of children was considered to be counterproductive to the strategic necessity of keeping slaves ignorant and oppressed. Even the few missionary churches, principally Baptists, which provided training for literacy, mostly directed their efforts to adult slaves.

When emancipation dawned, the progeny of freed slaves were completely unschooled, creating a mammoth problem of how to introduce education for many thousands of students of various ages. The few schools which existed restricted enrolment to the white population, excluding Jews, children of mixed races and free blacks, until gradually, in later years, access was given to these groups.

Colonial policy

Limiting education to selected categories of children was in keeping with the colonial policy to educate a Creole middle class who could then be used to take over middle level functions of the colony and provide commercial activity, administrative and professional services without threatening the ruling elite. Slaves would be expected to provide labouring work even after emancipation, in order to ensure the needs of the plantation.

The construction of primary schools which would provide basic education for children of the freed slaves did not begin until the appointment of Governor Sir John Peter Grant. He replaced the despised governor, Sir Edward Eyre, who was recalled in disgrace after presiding over the massacre of the 'rebels' of the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865.

Other than the limited efforts of government, education was left to the church and was principally directed to the training of a middle class for civil society.

In 1957, 90 years later, the elected government of the People's National Party became involved in the education of children of the poor. Dr. Ivan Lloyd, Minister of Education, announced that the prevailing system of education was dysfunctional and in need of streamlining to create a smooth passage from primary to secondary schools.

'Buy' entry

Secondary schools at the time held their own entrance examinations which enabled children of parents with means to 'buy' entry in the event of failure to gain access by merit.

To overcome this, a Common Entrance Exam (CEE) was introduced in 1957, which would select successful entrants on merit only. The 1957 education policy declaration was aimed at improving the enrolment of students entering secondary schools, particularly among those who were unable to afford the fees. According to Dr. Lloyd, apart from the few scholarships made available by the government prior to 1957 (130 free places in a total secondary school population of 10,000), "those who went to secondary schools were those who could afford to." The main objective of this policy was to award free places to all students who, irrespective of the means of their parents, had achieved a minimum standard in the Common Entrance Examination, and for whom places could be found in high schools.

The result of the CEE was vital to selection, irrespective of whether the student originated from fee-paying preparatory schools, or government free primary schools.

However, the result did not match the expectation or intent. By 1961, 20,000 students were sitting the CEE. Of that total, only 978 or 46 per cent of 2,133 free places to secondary schools were won by students attending primary schools, while 1,155 or 54 per cent from preparatory schools received awards. Analysis of these results indicated that only one in 86 students from primary schools had a chance of winning a free place as compared to one in four students from preparatory schools. Another conclusion can be drawn: 29 per cent of the students from private schools were successful as compared to 7 per cent of those originating from primary schools.

Obviously there was a serious problem here.

Disproportionate entries

Edwin Allen, Minister of Education in the Jamaica Labour Party government elected in 1962, saw the problem of disproportionate entries which militated against children from poorer homes. To adjust this, Allen announced a 70:30 policy which reserved 70 per cent of the free-places to secondary schools for students from primary schools who were successful in passing the minimum standard in the CEE; the remaining 30 per cent was allotted to students from private schools.

Notwithstanding the much larger number of free places now available as a result of the increased ratio for entrance from primary to secondary schools, there were other formidable problems to overcome:

"the inadequate number of schools and school places: only a minority of primary school graduates were able to be placed in the secondary school system;

"There was a lack of aptitude for secondary education among the majority of primary school students who gained access to the expanded secondary school system;

"the cost of education at the secondary level was largely unaffordable to poor parents.

It was obvious that a considerable increase in secondary school accommodation would be necessary if all students from primary schools were to gain entrance. This problem was reported in the UNESCO Report on Jamaica's education system in 1964. It had to be solved or the other reforms would be ineffective.

Edwin Allen introduced a sweeping plan for education reforms in 1966 which he entitled, "New Deal for Education in Independent Jamaica". He announced an agreement with the World Bank to construct 50 new secondary schools to augment the existing 47 schools at secondary level; forty primary schools by the end of 1967 and an increase in the annual output of trained teachers from 350 to 1,000 by 1969. This was the first project of the World Bank in secondary education anywhere. By more than doubling the number of secondary places, this would considerably increase the enrolment into secondary schools.

Junior Secondary Schools

The next hurdle was even more difficult. The great majority of those students, who gained access to the secondary system were not equipped academically to benefit from education at this level. They were nonetheless admitted into the new schools. These new schools were named Junior Secondary Schools to indicate the difference in standards.

The expectation was that with the passage of time, there would be improvement in quality which would raise the substandard levels of the students. This improvement would be measured by the results of the graduates from these schools in school leaving exams.

The final obstacle was the unaffordable cost to children of the poor.

Free education

In 1973, in his budget presentation to the House of Representatives, Michael Manley triumphantly announced the introduction of free education which closed the circle of providing education for children of the poor that was:

"accessible on merit (Ivan Lloyd);

"fully accessible in terms of the increased number of places for primary school students in secondary schools after doubling the number of schools (Edwin Allen)

"affordability for the poor (Michael Manley).

But Manley was not in a proper position to make his announcement in 1973. The initiative was far reaching and required study by the Ministries of Education and Finance. He made the announcement on impulse, however, after advising his ministers of finance and education that he was going ahead regardless of the state of readiness of their examination of the proposal. His desire to seize the moment was because I had belittled the first budget of his government and he wished to play a trump card. However, in so doing, he went to the extreme of providing free education to cover all costs in primary, secondary and tertiary level. By over-playing his hand he increased budget expenditure from $47,750,000 in the current year to $209,000,000 the next year. This wiped out virtually all the surplus that was to be derived from the bauxite levy which he secured in 1974 and set the stage for a necessary withdrawal from free education eventually.

Cost-sharing policy

First to go was "free education" at the tertiary level which was replaced by a 15 per cent cess roughly a decade later, in 1985, to be paid by students as part of the severe fiscal adjustment package consequent on the near collapse of the bauxite/alumina industry at that time. This was followed by abolition of free education at the secondary level again a decade later in 1994, when the cost-sharing policy wasintroduced requiring parents of secondary school students who could afford it to pay a subsidised cost. In effect, these changes could be considered a shift from free education to the cost-sharing system.

The restoration of "free education" insofar as covering the cost of payments for tuition, was a strong platform of the JLP in the 2002 general election when I made repeated calls for the abolition of payment of tuition fees. Prime Minister P.J. Patterson promised to implement a policy of free tuition within two years, but it was not done. Bruce Golding, Leader of the Opposition, has quite rightly revived the issue for the current election, but so far without success.

Education as a result, continues to be tossed around as part of a one-upmanship game without recognising that with all the changes made over 40 years, the results remain the same: *75 per cent of the secondary school age students have no CSEC passes and no marketable skills at all.

[Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister: He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the UWI. E-mail: odf@uwimona.edu.jm]

http://www.jamaicaelections.com/gene...ticle-419.html

[Karl]

Inequality: GSAT and the Common Entrance

Inequality: GSAT and the Common Entrance


Peter Espeut
THE WHOLE country must be scandalised at the report of a father mercilessly beating his daughter because she did not get a place at a traditional high school in the recent Grade Six Achievement Test. His frustration is understandable: the life chances of thousands of Jamaicans are often determined by the type of secondary school they attend. But why take it out on the child? Frustrated parents and children must learn to direct their frustration in the appropriate direction.

Let's face it: we have a serious problem with secondary education in Jamaica. We don't have enough of it, and much of what we have was designed to be of poor quality. After my column of two weeks ago, I was asked whether I really believed that there was a definite plan after Independence to keep people backward through education, and I am resolute in my belief that there was. Let me repeat my argument a little more fulsomely.
At Independence in 1962, we had 41 traditional high schools and 8 senior schools. Only at high school could one take the Cambridge GCE Examinations, which would allow entrance into higher education, but space in those 41 schools was limited. At the same time, we had the Grade 6 students of the 672 All-Age Schools and 21 Junior Schools competing to enter the traditional high schools.

Just a few years before Independence, all the High Schools in Jamaica were privately owned by churches and trusts. Only about 2,000 new places were available each year, and access was determined by the ability to pay. In 1962 the poor had access only to the 21 junior schools (up to Grade 6) and 672 elementary schools (up to Grade 9) with little hope of moving up. In 1957 the government of the day took over the secondary education system by offering to cover the costs of running the 41 high schools, in return for the right to determine who was admitted. Clearly there were not enough high school places for everyone, and so the government was faced with two immediate problems: how to choose the 2,000 who would benefit from secondary education, and how to increase the number who would benefit.

The first problem was addressed by the introduction of a competitive examination called the Common Entrance Examination (CEE), where selection would be on the basis of performance, and not wealth. Here for the first time, rich and poor would compete in the same examination for entrance into the same schools, and cracks began to appear in Jamaica's rigid class- and colour-conscious social structure. In 1959, 24,819 students sat the CEE and 1,916 students were placed in the 41 high schools. Those who failed to get a place in a high school went to the senior schools or remained in all-age schools until Grade 9 when their school careers would come to an end.

No one could say that this was good enough. The obvious solution to the problem was to build new high schools so that more students could benefit from high school. On the day when you have enough high school places for everyone, we would no longer need the CEE and we would have provided high school education for all.

But after 20 years of Independence under both the JLP and the PNP, that approach was not followed. Only two new high schools were built (one was Charlemont), while four private high schools were brought into the grant-in-aid system (Ardenne, Campion, DeCarteret and Munro). A new type of secondary school the Comprehensive High School was created, and five were built. At the same time, enrolment in the traditional high schools was increased by enlarging their capacity and by the introduction of a two-shift system. Through these means, the number of CEE places more than quadrupled over the period to 8,853 still only one-third of the applicants of 20 years before.

The scandal as far as I am concerned is that in that first 20 years after Independence both the JLP and PNP governments borrowed money to build secondary schools that were not high schools! In the 1960s, junior secondary schools were built, and in the 1970s, new secondary schools were built; entry to each was gained by failing the CEE! In all, 70 of these secondary schools were built, the graduates of which took the Secondary School Certificate Examination not recognised by anyone except the police and the army! Imagine that we had built 70 high schools to increase the numbers placed by the CEE, to take the GCE and have the opportunity of social and educational mobility, to become entrepreneurs to grow our economy! Instead the governments took the decision to build schools of lower quality! What could have been in the minds of those policymakers, many of whom are still around today? Shameful, I say!

In the meantime, the number of all-age schools had decreased to 504 and the number of primary (junior) schools had increased from 21 to 282. Enrolled in Grade 6 of these two types of school combined were 52,142 students, of whom only 38,106 sat the CEE, competing for 8,853 places. Can you imagine the absolute waste of human capital these figures represent?

We have rebaptized some of these secondary schools and called them "Comprehensive Schools" and even "High Schools" without the slightest addition to the school plant (not even a science laboratory) or any adjustment to the teaching staff. In doing so, the government has devalued the meaning of "high school". In truth, the government operates high schools of variable quality from excellent to very poor.
And we have abolished the CEE and replaced it with the "Grade Six Achievement Test" (GSAT). Black dog and monkey!

Where is the plan to build more traditional high schools, to provide high-quality high school education for all Jamaicans?

And so when a father beats his daughter for not being placed in a traditional high school, you can understand the frustration that would cause it, even though his actions were inexcusable. But his ire was misdirected; instead he should blame the PNP and JLP for creating the grossly unequal education system we have in Jamaica, which wastes human capital and is keeping the country poor. And is perpetuating social and economic inequality in our fair land. Shameful!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive Director of an environment and development NGO.

[Karl]

Education in Independence

Education in Independence

Published: Sunday | March 25, 2012


Students of Sts Peter and Paul Prep School frolic after the completion of their Grade Six Achievement Test sitting last Friday. - Rudolph Brown/Photographer

Martin Henry, Contributor

This year's writing of the Grade Six Achievement Test went by last Thursday and Friday and 44,000 'traumatised' 11-year-olds - and their parents - can breathe again, at least until results time in June.


More students registered than actually took the test. Of the 52,000 who registered, the Ministry of Education 'deferred' 3,500 to next year's sitting and 4,500 were barred from GSAT, having not achieved mastery in four sittings of the Grade Four Literacy Test. The majority of the 44,000 candidates are vying for a place in around 20 top-tiered high schools, while there are about 150 secondary-level schools in the country. These numbers, from a purely historical perspective, are very interesting.

As a quick demographic aside, at 52,000 potential candidates, there are fewer children taking the test than the near 60,000 who did so in its early years, an indication that the population growth rate is slowing.

Dogged by several difficulties, GSAT, unfortunately, is now more widely regarded as a problem rather than the major achievement in education policy and development that it is. GSAT replaced the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) in 1999. A Norman Manley administration, with Florizel Glasspole as minister of education, introduced the CEE in 1958, which offered an unprecedented 2,000 free places in high schools each year. Prior to the CEE, the majority of high-school students were the fee-paying children of the well-to-do, with only a handful of parish scholarships available through which the bright poor could gain access. The CEE, an entrance examination pure and simple, offered merit-based scholarships to a far larger number of children, revolutionising access to secondary education.

But the CEE soon hit major snags. While increasing the capacity of existing high schools, about 45 of them from colonial times, the Government did precious little to increase the number of schools. St Thomas, for instance, did not have even one high school before 1960. It soon became obvious that the children of the better off, benefiting from fee-paying private prep school education, were seriously outperforming children in government primary schools for scarce high-school places.

To rectify the problem, the Government of the 1960s, early into Independence, with Edwin Allen as minister of education, introduced the 70:30 ratio in favour of the far more numerous but more weakly performing primary-school students.

Universal access
One of the better legacies of the colonial era was the dense network of primary schools across the country. Nearly every village had its own, and every child was within walking distance of a primary school. Even today, there are 'uneconomical' primary schools with a couple of teachers and a couple dozen students. The geography and settlement patterns of Jamaica, a mostly mountainous country, dictate that primary education has to be highly localised if universal access is to be achieved.

We came to Independence with pretty much universal access and have maintained it. Schools were built in new urban centres and added to expanding townships. Access was never the issue at the primary level, but quality and performance.

The Government of the 1960s vigorously set about expanding access to secondary education, but, in hindsight, went about it the wrong way. Armed with World Bank money, 50 junior secondary schools were 'built by Labour'. The junior secondary school took tens of thousands of students to grade nine, age 15, and left them high and dry. The Secondary School Certificate was a ticket to nowhere. It did not articulate with further education or with work.

The most intractable GSAT problem, the problem of placement, is a direct consequence of the junior secondary school. Those schools, over the next decades, were progressively 'upgraded' to new secondary schools, and then upgraded high schools which have never been able to catch up with the performance of the traditional grammar high school. The introduction of samples of other types of secondary schools created a hodgepodge. In Jamaican Society and High Schooling' (1990), Professor Errol Miller writes: "... In the 1980s, a plethora of secondary-school types exist in the Jamaican educational system: traditional high schools, technical high schools, comprehensive high schools, agricultural secondary schools, new secondary schools, and vocational schools. To this mix was added in the 1990s, as a flashback to the 1960s, the junior high school."

Universal literacy
Quality and performance have been critical issues in education in Independence. The failure of the primary school to deliver universal literacy led to the creation of the Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL). JAMAL, intended to be a short-term fix, substantially reduced adult literacy but ran for more than 25 years under that name before its transformation into a broader adult-education programme. The primary school kept pumping out illiterates who, with open access, went into and through the secondary-school system, pulling down the performance of the non-traditional schools.

But going back to the numbers, only 4,500 students of a cohort of 52,000 have not achieved a level of mastery in the Grade Four Literacy Test after multiple attempts. That's 8.65 per cent. While no cause for comfort in the quest for universal literacy, it does show what can be achieved when we are serious about literacy.

CXC examinations, which began at the end of the 1970s, provided an effective means of tracking performance in the secondary-school system within the country and across Caribbean territories. Thanks to our learner readiness and quality issues, Jamaica has consistently ranked near the bottom of CXC performance among CARICOM states. Fewer than 10 per cent of CXC cohorts were passing the minimum five subjects, including English and mathematics, required for entry into college-level post-secondary education. Most of the students in the new secondary schools weren't even candidates. So despite the massive expansion of secondary education from the '60s forward, the majority of the nation's children have not been achieving a secondary-level education from which they can transition into tertiary education or entry-level professional work.

The HEART Trust/NTA was the response of the Seaga Government of the 1980s to the absence of achievement of proper secondary education and the acquisition of skills by the majority of the nation's young people. HEART/NTA marks 30 years of existence this year, and the problem is still with us, with some 70 per cent of the labour force having no certified skills.

Four years before Independence, the Government established the Jamaica Institute of Technology (JIT) to provide post-secondary technical education beyond what the Kingston Technical School, established in 1896, offered. JIT was renamed the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST) in 1959 and was transformed into the University of Technology in 1995.

In hindsight, Government took far too long to establish national universities alongside the regional University of the West Indies. CAST had to fight with its own Government for degree-granting status. Why is there only a single UTech (albeit now multi-campus, including a Western Jamaica campus) with only 12,000 students? Why is there no articulated system of technical-vocational education from primary to tertiary level, a need which was recognised from at least the 1940s? For most of its existence, the HEART Trust/NTA wasn't even part of the education system, but was a standalone attached to Industry?

Matching any of the previous 'revolutions' in education in importance was the significant expansion of post-secondary education in the 1990s, pushing the post-sec population up from a mere five per cent of cohort to around 15 per cent today. There has been an explosion of onshore and offshore universities.

Current trajectory
A serious emergent problem is the adequacy of supply of qualified students coming out of secondary education prepared for tertiary education. On current trajectory, of the 52,000 GSAT cohort this year (those eligible to take the test, not those who actually took it), no more than about 5,000, after five years of secondary education, will qualify for matriculation into college-level education. The wastage of the nation's young people is enormous and shocking.

The GSAT itself is part of a major development in education in the 1990s, the establishment of the National Assessment Programme (NAP), consisting of a Grade One Readiness Inventory, a Grade Three Diagnostic Test in English and mathematics, a Grade Four Literacy Test, and the Grade Six Achievement Test. NAP provides a powerful tool for the management of primary education.

In the anxiety of GSAT preparation and writing, both Government and people are forgetting that GSAT was supposed to be an 'achievement test' for the whole of primary education, and not merely a placement test for secondary school. With the scarcity of desirable 'good' places, for good historical reasons, the test is bound to be a fiercely contested placement competition. A GSAT review is now getting under way. Education Minister Ronnie Thwaites said there is overwhelming dissatisfaction with the GSAT curriculum, with the method of testing and with placement.

Vision 2030 has a whole National Outcome section for 'World Class Education and Training'. "Under Vision 2030, our country will develop an education and training system that produces well-rounded and qualified individuals who will be empowered to learn for life, able to function as creative and productive individuals in all spheres of our society and be competitive in a global context."

We are into 50 years of Independence; and 2030 is a mere 18 years away. But that's more than enough time to transform early-childhood education to produce universal learning readiness; primary education to produce universal literacy, broadly conceived; to have the vast majority of secondary-level graduates earning a standardised high-school diploma; to create a system of articulated technical and vocational education; and to have at least a third of the population achieving degree-level tertiary education.

But we will need a vibrant economy to absorb those products of an upgraded education system. At the moment, we are exporting some 80 per cent of our few best successes, tertiary graduates.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...us/focus3.html

[Islandman]

The story may be complicated but the outcome is not:

....with all the changes made over 40 years, the results remain the same: 75 per cent of the secondary school age students have no CSEC passes and no marketable skills at all.

[Don1]

Problems with secondary education are mere symptoms....the core deficiency is at the primary level and in homes where socialization is poor

Building more "traditional" high schools as this writer suggests will not solve the problem unless those schools are able to spend multiple millions annually on academic remediation and basic support like tuition waivers, food subsidies, job & family life counseling, extra-curricular activities etc for their students. Schools with an inadequate quality intake have to replicate a positive home environment nowadays. Of course that won't occur.

The primary level must be reconstructed and capitalized adequately first to produce a quality intake for secondary schools

But Jamaicans usually have it a$$ backwards...putting the cart before the horse

[Karl]

Problems with secondary education are mere symptoms....the core deficiency is at the primary level and in homes where socialization is poor

Building more "traditional" high schools as this writer suggests will not solve the problem unless those schools are able to spend multiple millions annually on academic remediation and basic support like tuition waivers, food, job & family life counseling, extra-curricular activities etc for their students. Schools with an inadequate quality intake have to replicate a positive home environment nowadays. Of course that won't occur.

The primary level must be reconstructed and capitalized adequately first to produce a quality intake for secondary schools

But Jamaicans usually have it a$$ backwards...putting the cart before the horse

It is complicated, isn't it?
The solutions demand 'building out' fixes!!!
Well...it is as your mentioned...and more!!!

[Karl]

You are so correct - predictable outcomes...

[Islandman]

Yes early childhood education is where the separation occurs. Few students fully recover after falling behind in those early years, particularly if they are from disadvantaged homes.

[Karl]

... *75 per cent of the secondary school age students have no CSEC passes and no marketable skills at all.

[Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister: He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the UWI. E-mail: odf@uwimona.edu.jm]

http://www.jamaicaelections.com/gene...ticle-419.html

What is the above saying?
...and what does it mean on

no marketable skills at all.

...and what does it portend?

What are the fixes and how so/how will those fixes be done?

[Don1]

It is complicated...which is why Muggy Graham, while he has a valid point about over-emphasis on sport in the society...misses the mark regarding the core problems in secondary education. Clearly those problems have little to do with sport...but reflect a lack of investment

His one-tracked focus on sport and lack of data (or even his lack of a call for data-driven research) on the overall problem is a very quixotic approach to a complex problem for a supposed scientist

I am beginning to believe his agenda is not pure... as Willi has been sayin'

[Islandman]

I interpret no marketable skills to mean that they are virtually unemployable.

There are no easy solutions, that is for sure. Government alone cannot do it either, surely not the governments we have.

This is where I believe the diaspora, if organized, could make a difference with funding and programs. However you still need the leadership on the ground, very little will be achieved without that.

[Don1]

yep. Unfortunately most in the diaspora are too busy with their "free" time...too busy yappin'

[Mosiah]

It is complicated...which is why Muggy Graham, while he has a valid point about over-emphasis on sport in the society...misses the mark regarding the core problems in secondary education. Clearly those problems have little to do with sport...but reflect a lack of investment

His one-tracked focus on sport and lack of data (or even his lack of a call for data-driven research) on the overall problem is a very quixotic approach to a complex problem for a supposed scientist

I am beginning to believe his agenda is not pure... as Willi has been sayin'

Why does he have to address every angle?!? Let someone else take up the mantle having to do with whatever. The man has chosen sport, something close to his heart. Nutten wrong wid dat!

[Skeng DX]

listen -> http://www.klassportsradio.com/index...=43&Itemid=126

[Don1]

Why does he have to address every angle?!? Let someone else take up the mantle having to do with whatever. The man has chosen sport, something close to his heart. Nutten wrong wid dat!

He is 100% wrong IF he's attempting to link sports-centric admission or retention of students as a PRIMARY factor in poor or mediocre academic performance GENERALLY in the secondary system

It appears he's trying to link the two phenomena since he doesn't make any distinction in his "analysis". Neither does he offer any relational data linking cause and effect...just his speculations, suppositions and anecdotes

A very poor approach for a scientist. The matter needs to be studied...not subject to emotional agendas without any firm basis in fact.

He may yet have a point if the data supports whatever he's trying to posit