#BTColumn – Debating the Common Entrance Exam

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

by Dr Garry Hornby

One of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the Town Hall meetings, planned by the Ministry of Education, and other opportunities to debate education reform that includes abandoning the Common Entrance examination (CEE), have not yet taken place.

But with three articles published in last Tuesday’s Barbados TODAY on this topic, following several articles in previous weeks, it seems that the debate is finally taking off, courtesy of Barbados TODAY.

Since we all went to school and therefore many people consider themselves experts on education, it is understandable that our experiences have a big influence on our views.

However, just like in other fields, such as medicine and engineering, although personal anecdotes provide useful insights, it needs to be mainly objective evidence that guides education policy.

In the past thirty years there has been an exponential increase in research evidence on the effectiveness of educational interventions, one source of which is the OECD. For example, in a report on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted in sixty-nine countries, the OECD (2016, p. 46) concluded: “PISA results show that more inclusive and fairer school systems are those that provide access to quality early education for all children, offer additional support to struggling students, rather than require them to repeat grades, and delay the age at which students are selected into different programmes or schools.

These systems also strive to have excellent schools located in every neighbourhood and ensure that they are accessible to all students, and provide additional support to disadvantaged schools.”

It is with this focus on the international research evidence base for the effectiveness
of education systems, as well as local and regional evidence, that I would like to address various points made in last Tuesdays articles on the CEE.

First, one of the articles comments that looking to abolish the CCE amounts to, ‘attacking the legacy of Errol Barrow’. However, Barrow is reported in 1987 to have promoted the aspiration for Barbados, “…to have an education system which is as good as what can be obtained in any industrialized country, anywhere in the world.”

He would therefore surely have wanted Barbados to follow guidance from bodies such as the OECD which indicate that most world class education systems no longer have transfer to secondary schools driven by high stakes tests such as the CEE at age 11. So he
may well have been in favour of discarding the CEE at this time.

The implication of this is that Barbados must aspire to develop, “ an education system which is as good as … anywhere in the world.”This means we must be courageous enough to abandon outdated aspects of our education system, such as the 11 plus exam, which originated in Britain and was discarded there by the vast majority of education authorities over 50 years ago.

Instead we must be guided by international research from organisations like the OECD (2018) on what is required to develop a world class education system. The elements of this are outlined in our article in Barbados TODAY published on 15th May 2019.

Second, one of the articles includes a comment about the likelihood of ending up at Dodds being similar for those who attended one of the so-called elite secondary
schools as those who went to one of the newer secondary schools.

This is in contrast to my experience in 1997 when, as a consultant on special needs education to the Ministry of Education, I visited Glendairy prison and the governor asked me two questions.

Why do most of the inmates struggle with reading and writing and why do most of them come from just a handful of the newer secondary schools?

Confirmation that what the Americans call the, ‘school to prison pipeline’ has persisted in Barbados was provided by a survey of inmates at Dodds conducted by the Criminal Justice Research and Planning Unit in 2018. This found that the overwhelming majority of inmates had attended one of just eight of the newer secondary schools, while hardly any had attended one of the so-called elite schools.

The implication of this is that we need to reform our education system so that it is focused on providing all our young people, not just a minority, with an education that equips them with the academic, vocational and interpersonal skills necessary to be successful in the 21st century. The elements of this are outlined in our articles in Barbados TODAY on 20th June 2019 and 18th November, 2019.

Third, the comment in one of last Tuesdays articles, that gifted children could not possibly be placed or taught in the same class as slower learners, is inaccurate on three grounds.

First, while there is no doubt this is challenging, with the use of now well established evidence-based practices such as peer tutoring, differentiation of instruction, and Universal Design for Learning, it is not only possible but also can be beneficial for both types of students.

I found this out by chance while teaching maths to mixed ability secondary school classes in New Zealand. When those who were good at maths finished the examples set for the class to work on, I got them to help the slower children to solve these problems.

This strategy worked well, but I felt guilty about it, until I discovered the research evidence showing that this ‘peer tutoring’ is beneficial for both children involved.

The weaker ones learn better from being tutored by their more able peers and the peer tutors develop a deeper understanding of the maths processes involved through their teaching, which is helpful to them.

The second rebuttal to this idea is that schools often use ‘setting’ to teach groups of similar ability in core subjects like maths, spelling or reading.

So gifted and slower learning children may be in the same Form class but be in different ‘sets’ for maths or reading.

This is a much more effective and less detrimental kind of ability grouping than between-class ability grouping (used in
New Zealand) or between-school ability grouping (used in Barbados), because children can accept that others are better than them at some things much easier than being labelled as being at B, C or D levels for everything.

The third and perhaps most important rebuttal is provided by some regional research recently conducted in Guyana (Shaw, et al., 2020).

This investigated the self-esteem, engagement levels and future expectations of students from secondary schools at four different levels of ability ranked schools within the Guyanese selective education system.

It was found that the experience of being in a high ability school had negatively impacted students’ self-esteem, engagement levels and future expectations, indicating that grouping high ability students together may lead to these students not reaching their full potential.

This suggests that selective education systems may not be in the best interest of higher ability children. The conclusions from this research were that highly able students may achieve better in schools where there is a mix of abilities than in those where all students are deemed to be highly able.

The implication of these findings are that the most effective schools are likely to be neighbourhood schools that have a mix of abilities and clear policy and organisation for supporting the learning of all children, from those with learning difficulties who need additional support to develop basic skills, to those who are highly able who need to be challenged in order to extend their abilities. The elements of this are discussed in our article in Barbados TODAY on 4th June, 2019.

It is hoped that the above discussion will contribute to the clarification of some misunderstandings and concerns about abandoning the 11 plus exam and thereby help us move to a more equitable and effective education system.

That is, one in which all our young people are valued and provided with an excellent education that helps them develop the skills they will need to contribute to Barbadian society and live successful and happy lives.

Dr Garry Hornby is an Emeritus Professor of Education. Articles referred to above can be obtained from him at: hornbygarry@gmail.com