Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

No­table im­prove­ments in three key sub­jects were ob­served in stu­dents who scored be­low 50 per cent on the 2022 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion.

The stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s Va­ca­tion Re­vi­sion Pro­gramme (VRP), and who did the Pri­ma­ry School Leav­ing Cer­tifi­cate in 2024, says Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

She con­firmed this in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day re­ply­ing to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Prof Ger­ard Hutchin­son’s queries on the progress of the VRP for stu­dents who scored be­low 50 per cent at the SEA.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said at the start of the pro­gramme, pre-tests in Math­e­mat­ics and Lan­guage Arts are ad­min­is­tered to as­sess stu­dents’ aca­d­e­m­ic lev­els. These re­sults are used by tu­tors to tai­lor les­son plans that ad­dress spe­cif­ic ar­eas of weak­ness. 

“Stu­dent per­for­mance is tracked by mea­sur­ing per­for­mance at na­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tions. It should be not­ed that the Pri­ma­ry School Leav­ing Cer­tifi­cate (PSLC) is the first na­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tion for the first batch of VRP stu­dents,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the im­prove­ments in three key sub­jects ob­served in stu­dents who scored be­low 50 per cent on the 2022 SEA and who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the VRP—and did the Pri­ma­ry School Leav­ing Cer­tifi­cate in 2024—were in the fol­low­ing ar­eas:

• 52 per cent in­crease in Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts Writ­ing;

• 44 per cent im­prove­ment in Math­e­mat­ics; and

• 89 per cent boost in Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts. 

She said stu­dents and their fam­i­lies re­ceived sup­port from the Min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices and Cur­ricu­lum Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sions, which pro­vid­ed both psy­choso­cial as­sis­tance and an ad­just­ed cur­ricu­lum de­signed to meet stu­dents’ spe­cif­ic needs.

The pro­gramme al­so ex­posed stu­dents to a broad cur­ricu­lum, in­clud­ing vi­su­al and per­form­ing arts, and of­fered op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­gage with in­flu­encers who shared in­sights on ca­reer choic­es and path­ways. 

Gads­by-Dol­ly added, “I’m hap­py to see the up­ward trend in the stu­dent’s per­for­mance (but) there’s al­ways room for im­prove­ment.

“We’re ap­peal­ing to par­ents of stu­dents el­i­gi­ble for the VRP to al­low your chil­dren to at­tend. There’s a lot to be done in terms of the aca­d­e­m­ic and tran­si­tions be­tween pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school they can ben­e­fit from ... we want to en­sure those el­i­gi­ble do at­tend.”

In to­tal, over the past three years, she said, 4,300 stu­dents have ben­e­fit­ted from the pro­gramme and it is an­tic­i­pat­ed it will con­tin­ue.

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so said ef­forts are be­ing made to in­crease Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD) staff—who ad­dress psy­choso­cial prob­lems at schools—and pro­cure nec­es­sary tools and de­vices—such as con­nec­tiv­i­ty de­vices and as­sess­ment tools.

SSSD of­fi­cers are as­signed to each pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school across the sev­en ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts, with ded­i­cat­ed of­fi­cers at 80 pri­ma­ry schools and 26 sec­ondary schools of fo­cus. Staff are trained to iden­ti­fy stu­dents in vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas and im­ple­ment nec­es­sary mea­sures to sup­port them. She said de­mand was huge.

“Schools of fo­cus with the high­est dis­ci­pline per­for­mance and low­est aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance re­quire more re­sources,” she not­ed.

En­gag­ing Cu­ba for more sports co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment 

Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis said this year the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to en­gage the Em­bassy of Cu­ba, and the Cuban gov­ern­ment to ini­ti­ate an­oth­er cy­cle of the tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment to pro­mote ca­pac­i­ty build­ing of tech­nocrats, coach­es and ad­min­is­tra­tors and skills de­vel­op­ment for ath­letes.

She was re­ply­ing to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Helon Fran­cis’ query on 2023 stud­ies by the min­istry on the suc­cess of sports de­vel­op­ment sys­tems in Ja­maica and whether the min­istry in­tends to ex­am­ine sports de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes of oth­er re­gion­al coun­tries with high-per­form­ing ath­letes like Cu­ba.

Cud­joe-Lewis, who said the Min­istry con­tin­ued to work close­ly with var­i­ous re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners in sports de­vel­op­ment, cit­ed Ja­maica, stake­hold­ers in In­dia and Aus­tralia, as well as work­ing with the Unit­ed King­dom, Switzer­land’s Union Cy­cliste In­ter­na­tionale, and the US Uni­ver­si­ty of Portsmouth.

She de­tailed key find­ings of a 2023 vis­it of a T&T del­e­ga­tion to Ja­maica to gain in­sights in­to Ja­maica’s suc­cess­ful na­tion­al sport path­way de­vel­op­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in track and field—and the im­pact of the find­ings on T&T, in­clud­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with Ja­maica’s Gov­ern­ment for deep­er sport de­vel­op­ment part­ner­ship.