With the countdown on for the final year of the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination (BSSEE), officials from the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training have announced that minor changes have been made to the electronic application system for parents.
During an in-person town hall meeting on Saturday at the Lester Vaughan School in Cane Garden, St Thomas, facilitated by Education Officer Shamin Ally and Liaison Officer Kenneth Turton, parents who turned out queried the effectiveness of the changes to the new system.
Turton explained to Barbados TODAY that the BSSEE would be going through the same process that it went through in previous years but the major change is reintroducing parents to the digital form, which is more user friendly this time around.
“This was implemented last year but the look of the form changed and how the fields were filled out was changed this year. So, the form is more user-friendly this year and then it is easier to do the error checking. We had a situation where parents would submit multiple copies of the form and we would come across one child’s name three or four times,” he explained.
“We are going to try to cut down on that so [our new approach] would cut down on the workload, and the layout is just so much easier. The form guarantees that you fill it out as correctly as possible.”
The town hall meeting, which was the first of its kind to be launched simultaneously with another at the Alexandra School on Saturday, was deemed a success by Ally, who said she was pleased with the turnout by the parents and the questions asked.
“Overall I would say the meeting was a success. I am glad that we were able to address the concerns that the many parents had. The added component this year is the electronic registration and the fact that we added in the map to show the addresses within each zone, that in itself was a very good feature of this electronic system.”
The series of town hall meetings is being undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training to sensitise parents/guardians and teachers about the processes involved in the administration of the examination. (MR)
