#Providenciales, April 15, 2019 – Turks and Caicos – When sixth grade students across the country sit the 2019 GSAT examinations this year, that will be the end of an era as the exam for this jurisdiction will become history and the new Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment or CPEA will be established as its replacement.
“This
will be the last year,” said Edgar Howell, who is the Director at the Ministry
of Education, who added, “…but there are still some policy decisions to be
taken around how students will transition from primary into secondary school.”
That
qualifying policy decision, once determined, will undoubtedly grab national
headlines and that’s because the Grade Six Achievement Test or GSAT is of
paramount priority for hundreds of students, their parents and their teachers
when it comes to transitioning to high school.
It is often a dogged competition as students are under heavy pressure,
sometimes considered overly pressured to try to top the results chart.
The high
stakes examination often leads to full scholarships to the best schools but
more negatively, it often leads to arguments, accusations even students
stressed to the point of passing out.
Director
of the Minister of Education, Edgar Howell in February explained the changes
as, “It is really going to be about project-based learning, students will
develop portfolios, students would learn how to set an assessment paper and
grade the assessment paper themselves; they would develop responsibility really
for their own learning and help to direct that process.”
Mr.
Howell said the Ministry is expected to see an enriched learning environment
within the primary schools of the Turks and Caicos Islands; he said it will be
transformative.
“It will
transform what we currently know as a primary school experience and while we
will focus on grades three to grade six, we expect the methodology to be used
throughout the school system. That is
from Infant 1 right up to grade six.”
And this
new external examination for our sixth-grade students will look at their
overall proficiency as a student; no longer an emphasis on whether children can
regurgitate a standard curriculum.
“The
Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment, CPEA, does not necessarily depend on having
a grade six specific curriculum in place because the assessment is based around
certain literacies that all children who are in a primary school system whether
they are in Turks and Caicos or in Barbados or Cayman Islands ought to have by
the time they are leaving grade six.”
Work on
this transition and transformation is ongoing with the aim of subjects being
ready for the new academic year in September 2019; already core subjects like
Mathematics, English Language where the guidelines are developed and Social Studies
and Science, are progressing.
Mr.
Howell added, “Students will continue to transition into high school. We are
not using CPEA to determine whether a child has passed or failed that is not
going to be the way that we look at it in terms of a 50 percent or a 75
percent. Students would have mastered
certain skills and based on the mastery of those skills they will transition
into high school.”
In 2018, 487 students were registered for the GSAT examinations; the Ministry reported that 75.56 percent of the students sitting the tests passed into high school, which means 119 students were unsuccessful and were likely left behind.
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#lastyearforgsat