Sascha Wil­son

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh says the lev­el of per­for­mance in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools has to im­prove be­fore the "dread­ful" Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am can be re­placed.Gopeesingh first hint­ed at the pos­si­ble re­moval of the ex­am at the min­istry's SEA 2013 awards cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Tues­day, he said, "I in­di­cat­ed there is need for con­sid­er­a­tion of whether there is an al­ter­na­tive method for plac­ing our stu­dents in sec­ondary schools, which will need a lot of na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion amongst the ma­jor stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards, TTUTA (T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion), NPTA (Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion), NGOs (non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions), CBOs (com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions) and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty."

He said it would re­quire a mul­ti-pronged and mul­ti-di­men­sion­al ap­proach.Asked why he de­scribed the SEA as "dread­ful," he said par­ents were al­ways com­plain­ing that the ex­ams put their chil­dren un­der a lot of stress."Some­times par­ents re­sort to send­ing their chil­dren for ex­tra lessons five to six times a week, though they are filled with acad­e­mia dur­ing the day." Par­ents, he said, al­so stressed their chil­dren by putting pres­sure on them to per­form bet­ter.

He said that was one rea­son why the Con­tin­u­ous As­sess­ment Com­po­nent (CAC) was in­tro­duced."In 2013 we have 20 per cent of the marks go for con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment; in May 2014, 40 per cent go to con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment and 60 per cent for lan­guage, arts and math­e­mat­ics, so that will be one ma­jor par­a­digm shift."We in­her­it­ed the British sys­tem of ed­u­ca­tion, (but) we are open to broad­er sug­ges­tions," he added.

The min­is­ter could not say what sys­tem he had in mind to re­place the SEA but his first goal was to im­prove the stan­dards of ed­u­ca­tion in all schools to en­sure that all stu­dents per­form at a cer­tain lev­el.Al­ready, he said, there had been marked im­prove­ment in pri­ma­ry school per­for­mance.In ad­di­tion, he said, the gov­ern­ment is mov­ing for­ward with the uni­ver­sal ear­ly child­hood ed­u­ca­tion which would en­sure a "bet­ter in­take" in­to the pri­ma­ry schools, and treat­ing with stu­dents who have spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion­al needs.

He added: "So there­fore the lev­el of per­for­mance in our sec­ondary schools will un­doubt­ed­ly im­prove with­in the next two to three years cer­tain­ly.

"We are re­train­ing and train­ing new teach­ers, fill­ing all va­can­cies, achiev­ing ma­jor school-based man­age­ment teams to­geth­er with lo­cal school boards, and work­ing fever­ish­ly with prin­ci­pals and their teams to con­tin­ue to im­prove per­for­mances so that even­tu­al­ly all schools can be on an equal sta­tus lev­el in terms of per­for­mance, and there­fore stu­dents and par­ents will not find it dif­fi­cult to choose what school theirchil­dren should go to.

"But this process will take some time. It can­not be done with­in the first term of of­fice, it will re­quire some ma­jor in­ter­ac­tive dis­cus­sions on the way for­ward on this is­sue."He said the zon­ing sys­tem used in the Unit­ed States could not work at the mo­ment be­cause not all schools were per­form­ing at an ac­cept­able lev­el.