Teachers seek answers on future of 11-Plus exam

By Sheria Brathwaite

Teachers want officials to be open with them about the future of the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examinations (BSSEE).
President of the Barbados Union Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell says a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the exam, commonly referred to as Common Entrance or 11-Plus, after this year, and educators want more information so they can prepare themselves and their students for the way forward.
“I think three dates were given for the abolition of the Common Entrance but, to date, it has not been confirmed. Like most other persons, the BUT is waiting to hear when or if the 11-Plus will be abolished.
“Not only Class 4 teachers, all primary school teachers will want to know what is the replacement for the Common Entrance. As you know, the syllabus must begin early and having an idea as to what you are teaching will better prepare teachers and students to achieve any success in the delivery of the education system,” he said following a regional teachers’ discussion via Zoom on Thursday.
Lovell added: “So there are some concerns by teachers but as a union, we will wait to see what happens in terms of what proposals the Ministry of Education places on the table with regards to education reform.”
Despite the uncertainty, the union boss acknowledged that the BUT had been involved in the proposed reform process.
“The education reform discussions only commenced last year in August and we were invited to every meeting so, from that perspective, the union can say we are satisfied about the level of discussion.
“So once the ministry has made a decision as to what they will do in terms of the 11-Plus examination, we are certain they will notify us, and as each initiative is proposed we will tackle it from a union’s perspective. We first have to have a discussion with our membership to see what they would want from education reform, whether it be additional resources and so on before we propose anything to the ministry,” Lovell added.
The last education reform discussion was held at Ilaro Court in either February or March, he said.
In 2020, then Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw said that year would be the last for the BSSEE and indicated that a national dialogue would occur over the following months to formulate a programme going forward for implementation in 2021.
However, that did not come to fruition. Then, during discussions on the 2022/2023 Estimates in the House of Assembly in March last year, Director of Education Reform Dr Idamay Denny disclosed that the end was near for the BSSEE.
“We are proposing that having had the Common Entrance for the last time this year, that is in 2022, we are proposing that the first set of students transitioning under the new structure will transition in September 2023. So, school year 2023/2024 is identified as the first year that the new structure comes into being,” she said back then, disclosing that there would be two levels of secondary education – Junior Academies for first to third formers and a four-year Academy of Excellence programme for students in the upper school.
Denny had explained that under the Ministry’s proposal, placement at the first level would be based on “identification of the junior academies in a particular catchment, and then having primary schools feed into those junior academies”.
The transition from the Junior Academies to the Academies of Excellence would take into account students’ skill sets, passions, and other strengths.
However, that has also not materialised and thousands of primary school students will on June 27 sit the exam to determine what secondary schools they will attend in September.
During the Zoom discussion Caribbean Teachers Talk 2, which was one of the activities of the BUT’s Annual General Conference, former head of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association Antonia Tekah-De Freitas told the BUT that as it relates to the proposals, teachers had to make their demands known upfront.
“The question is, though, what is Government’s approach going to be to the BUT? To have the members, educators buy into that philosophy and that approach and those initiatives? Is it simply going to be ‘we have handed this down, you go implement?’ I challenge us as educators, as unionists around the region, we should not only sit back and wait for the Government to say
‘we want to do this and these are our plans’,” she said.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb