Children graduating from primary school in 2025 will be entering a new junior college system, eliminating the need for the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination (BSSEE).
The revelation emerged during the Ministry of Education’s launch of the education reform proposals at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Thursday.
While emphasising that the new system remains in the proposal stage, Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw and Director of the Education Transformation Unit Dr Idamay Denny outlined their proposal to abolish the BSSEE, commonly known as the 11-Plus or Common Entrance Exam, to be sat for the last time next year.
Archer-Bradshaw described the new system, where primary school graduates would carry a personalised profile detailing their strengths and weaknesses. This profile would guide educators in prioritising individual student needs over traditional subject-based teaching.
Additionally, a multifaceted certification framework, culminating in a Barbados National Secondary Diploma, is proposed.
“This new system that we are proposing will have feeder schools and these feeder schools will be primary schools where students will go into a secondary catchment school,” Archer-Bradshaw said.
“We are also looking at additional forms of certification . . . . We want to make sure that at the end of the day, they have a piece of paper that says ‘I am competent in numeracy, literacy, a foreign language, I am a good person so I did some service learning, I volunteered somewhere [and] I am into my health and fitness so I did some extracurricular activities’. We are proposing something called a Barbados National Secondary Diploma . . . What we are also proposing is a two-tiered structure where we have a junior college of excellence and a senior college of excellence.”
Minister of Education Kay McConney asserted that the 11-Plus would see its final year in 2024, though emphasising that the proposal is subject to public consultation.
“Remember, this is just a proposal, we still have the public consultations, and if it is accepted then the children entering secondary schools in 2025 would not have to sit the exam,” she told Barbados TODAY in a later interview.
Asked how much of an investment it would require to retrofit the schools and transform the education system, McConney said the ministry was carrying out an audit and in a few months’ time, they would determine how much financing would be needed.
She said: “We have a consultant on board who is helping us do the audit so that we can understand, that if we are going to make the transitions that we wish to make in 2025, what will it take, what materials will be required, what facilities will be required, what resources will be needed to put in the various schools in order to make them not just fit for purpose but fit for progress.
“We also have subcommittees that have been set up that will look at our material resources as well as our physical and infrastructural resources and together, will be able to put an investment plan together. We are anticipating that that investment plan should be ready for us to review around February, so we would have a clear understanding of what it will cost us to implement [the reformative measures].”
During the presentation at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Denny elaborated on the junior college concept, detailing a curriculum for the first three years of secondary school, spanning coding, robotics, virtual reality, and emerging technologies for students aged 12 to 14. This phase would also involve career guidance and assessments before transitioning into senior colleges.
She explained that students will be guided on career paths and an assessment will be done at the end of this learning stage. They will then transition into senior colleges.
The officials said educators will receive additional training to deliver instructions better and to teach a new gamut of subjects students pursuing modern professions would need.
Education officials emphasised plans for enhanced teacher training to accommodate the new curriculum, along with the need for substantial upgrades to school infrastructure. A dedicated body will oversee the equitable distribution of resources to schools undergoing transformation.
Another key aspect of the proposed system is the introduction of universal pre-primary education for children as young as three years old. Denny highlighted the need for universal diagnostic testing during this stage to create individualised learning profiles.
Children will also commence foreign language learning at this early age.
Denny said that preschool was not compulsory, noting there were not enough government-funded institutions for parents, especially those in disadvantaged situations, to access.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY after the presentation, president of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) Rudy Lovell stressed the importance of training personnel at the pre-primary level to provide children with a solid foundation as they enter the primary school system.
“In terms of pre-primary education, any and everybody can have a daycare centre without being trained,” he said. “We want to see those persons who are dealing with pre-primary children trained for educational purposes so that those children can have a foundation on which they enter the primary school system.”
Government’s education reform proposals have undergone consultation with various stakeholders, including teacher unions, principal associations, teachers, and representatives from the public and private sectors, the education officials said.
Over 5 000 individuals participated in these discussions, with more than 3 500 being teachers, the education officials said.
A public consultation phase is set to begin shortly and extend through the next month.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
