Geisha Kow­lessar

Scrap the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) and re­place it with the Caribbean Pri­ma­ry Ex­it As­sess­ment (CPEA).This was the call made yes­ter­day by pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Zena Ra­matali.The NPTA has thrown its full sup­port be­hind Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh who an­nounced on Tues­day that tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al pro­grammes would be in­tro­duced to the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum.Gopeesingh was speak­ing at a dis­trict con­sul­ta­tion for the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum at the Crowne Plaza Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.

Ra­matali, who at­tend­ed a work­shop in Bar­ba­dos on June 18 and 19, ti­tled Caribbean Ex­am­in­ing Coun­cil Con­sul­ta­tion With Key Stake­hold­ers, said re­plac­ing SEA with the CPEA was "for­ward-think­ing."She added: "The SEA is a one-shot ex­am which is very stress­ful be­cause the stakes are high. But I be­lieve the CPEA will cater to all stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly the ones who might be strug­gling."She said Gopeesingh's move to in­tro­duce non-aca­d­e­m­ic sub­jects in­to the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum was in keep­ing with what the CPEA pro­posed."In­stead of in­tro­duc­ing it piece­meal, scrap the en­tire thing and im­ple­ment what CXC is propos­ing," Ra­matali sug­gest­ed.

She said Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da and T&T were cho­sen as the three pi­lot coun­tries which were iden­ti­fied to un­der­go the cur­ricu­lum trans­for­ma­tion.Ra­matali said the CPEA syl­labus com­prised math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, sci­ence and civics.At present the SEA cur­ricu­lum in­clud­ed all these sub­jects ex­cept civics.Ra­matali added: "Grena­da has tak­en the idea and has agreed to in­cor­po­rate it in­to all their 74 schools."That's the way all the oth­er Caribbean coun­tries are go­ing and we are hop­ing Trinidad will fol­low suit. It's not a mat­ter of choice. This is the prac­ti­cal way to go."

Ac­cord­ing to Ra­matali the CPEA will cre­ate a "holis­tic child" rather than mould one who is on­ly aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined."There are many chil­dren who are not aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined and fo­cus must be placed on har­ness­ing skills oth­er than aca­d­e­mics," Ra­matali said.She said the SEA sys­tem had many flaws, one of which forced pupils to learn by rote."There are chil­dren who are learn­ing the en­tire SEA ex­am and pass for good schools but when they en­ter sec­ondary schools their marks dras­ti­cal­ly drop be­cause they can­not cope," Ra­matali said.

She said she be­lieved the in­tro­duc­tion of ad­di­tion­al sub­jects would not place an ad­di­tion­al bur­den on a child who al­ready had to cope with the heavy de­mands of SEA.Ra­matali said the mark­ing sys­tem al­so would be changed as it would be di­vid­ed in­to two parts, 40 per cent, which would be al­lo­cat­ed for projects or course work, and 60 per cent to­wards the ac­tu­al ex­am­i­na­tion.She said: "It will mean the child can go in­to the ex­am with an ad­van­tage if they scored well in the 40 per cent."They will just have to con­cen­trate on ac­quir­ing marks in the sec­ond part of the ex­am which car­ries 60 per cent."

She said projects would not on­ly en­cour­age par­ents to spend qual­i­ty time with their chil­dren but al­so fos­ter team work, cre­at­ing a more har­mo­nious so­ci­ety.She added: "When you get chil­dren to work in groups they build a sense of team­work and they be­come more tol­er­ant and car­ing."If we have a sys­tem which was on­ly fo­cus­ing on aca­d­e­m­ic, with­out build­ing on the civics, that will cre­ate a very un­car­ing so­ci­ety," Ra­matali said.

SEA to stay, for now

Gopeesingh, how­ev­er, said his min­istry had no plans of quash­ing the SEA.He said he met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of CXC last Fri­day and was yet to give per­mis­sion for T&T to par­tic­i­pate in the pi­lot project pro­gramme.The pro­pos­al made by CXC, Gopeesingh said, was not ap­plic­a­ble to T&T.He said: "We have not giv­en any per­mis­sion to car­ry out any change."There are no plans to do away with SEA. As it is now SEA is here to stay."What we are work­ing out is whether a con­tin­u­ous school-based as­sess­ment will be part of the per­for­mance mea­sure­ment." Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Cliffton de Couteau, said he could not make any "cat­e­gor­i­cal state­ments" re­gard­ing the scrap­ing of SEA.How­ev­er, De Couteau said, ad­di­tion­al sub­jects were "need­ed."Us­ing his con­stituen­cy of Moru­ga/Table­land as an ex­am­ple, which is a fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty, he said ten stu­dents were cho­sen to take part in a boat-en­gine re­pair pro­gramme.

Greater con­sul­ta­tion need­ed

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Roul­ston Job has ex­pressed con­cern over Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to im­ple­ment non-aca­d­e­m­ic sub­jects in­to the pri­ma­ry school cur­ricu­lum, say­ing that may place un­due pres­sure on a child.He added: "At the end of the day tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al sub­jects still re­quire an ex­am to sit."We keep talk­ing about de­vel­op­ing a holis­tic child but it seems we are drilling a child even more."Say­ing that TTUTA was not con­sult­ed by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, Job added: "The min­is­ter needs to dis­cuss these things with key stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cial­ly TTUTA, if it means teach­ers will now re­quire ad­di­tion­al train­ing."Job al­so crit­i­cised Gopeesingh's de­ci­sion to shift the SEA date from March to May, adding that TUT­TA was "to­tal­ly against the idea.""I re­al­ly don't know what is the ra­tio­nal be­hind this. At the pri­ma­ry lev­el we are try­ing to de­vel­op the whole child. When the child fin­ish­es SEA they are not run­ning around the place, teach­ers are do­ing work with them," Job added.