The Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST) has launched a na­tion­al re­search project ti­tled “Analy­sis of Aca­d­e­m­ic Per­for­mance of Stu­dents Across Pri­ma­ry and Sec­ondary Schools in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The ini­tia­tive aims to ex­am­ine the fac­tors in­flu­enc­ing stu­dent out­comes across the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. Ac­cord­ing to NI­HERST, the re­search will sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy and pro­grammes, pro­vide da­ta on ex­ist­ing chal­lenges, and guide the im­ple­men­ta­tion of fu­ture ini­tia­tives to im­prove stu­dent per­for­mance.

The project seeks to con­tribute to the ad­min­is­tra­tion and gov­er­nance of the ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing sys­tem through ev­i­dence-based re­search. It al­so in­tends to de­liv­er in­sights in­to is­sues af­fect­ing learn­ing out­comes across pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.

Pres­i­dent (Ag.) Julie David stat­ed that the suc­cess of the project de­pends on par­tic­i­pa­tion from across the coun­try. She en­cour­aged teach­ers, par­ents, stu­dents, and mem­bers of the pub­lic to con­tribute to the process by com­plet­ing the on­line sur­vey be­fore the Ju­ly 31, 2025 dead­line. The sur­vey is ac­ces­si­ble at https://bit.ly/Aca­d­e­m­ic_Per­for­mance.

David said the re­search rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion on im­prov­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. She not­ed that re­spons­es to the sur­vey will help shape de­ci­sions around how the sec­tor can bet­ter meet the needs of stu­dents.

The project falls un­der NI­HERST’s broad­er man­date to ad­vance sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and in­no­va­tion through re­search and strate­gic de­vel­op­ment. The find­ings are ex­pect­ed to in­form poli­cies aimed at strength­en­ing the de­liv­ery of ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.