‘Abolish it’

There has been no official word of a change to the May 7 date for the Common Entrance Examination but a government lawmaker took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to declare he has it on “good authority” that it will be shifted.

For months, parents, union leaders and advocates have been calling on the Ministry of Education to move the exam to later in the month or early June for students to prepare better.

But, in making a case for education reform during the Senate debate on the Appropriation Bill, Senator Reverend Charles Morris, said: “I have it on good authority that the date will be put back, and I agree it should be put back.”

Despite this, the firebrand Anglican cleric and teacher who until two months ago was deputy high commissioner to the UK also declared that the time had come for the 11-Plus exam to be “abolished”, adding that it has been “a disadvantage to many Barbadians”.

He explained that the island’s education system at its foundational levels in nursery and primary schools must be able to focus on soft skills and curriculum change.

The primary education programme, he said, must include things like moral education and respect for authority, the environment, fellow students and self. At the same time, the heavy focus on academics from preschool must give way to learning, understanding and putting morals into practice.

“Those are attitudes and behaviours that will work towards a discipline synthesised end product by the time they finish formal education and be a productive citizen, and that is what we’re looking for.

“It means, therefore, that things like the 11-Plus have to be reformed or even removed. The 11-Plus exam fulfilled its function at a time when education was not universal, but right now, there is a place for every student at the secondary level, and so a transition from primary to secondary school has to be realistically taken into account . . . . Programmes at the secondary level must cater to where the student is.

“It cannot be a uniform, one-size-fits-all that we presently have that is resulting in the majority of students leaving school without fewer than three CXCs and therefore not being able to fit the types of jobs that they envision they should have, that they want. An important part of what we have to do now in education is to teach life skills, teach entrepreneurship, teach fiscal management so that they recognise that they do not have to depend on anyone to provide a job for them but they must have the basics,” the government senator said.

He said there was a need for education reform because at every juncture in history when there was a development in technology, there was the concomitant transformation in education.

“Our education system,” he said, “is based merely on an academic route to success. The education system, as it stands, does not focus on or recognise the different intelligences, the different skills and the different capacities that people have.

“It’s only in recent times that there have been some minor changes to curriculum reform in schools where they have recognised that the majority of persons before the courts come mainly from seven schools, and at these schools, they tried to modify the curriculum, but that was not enough . . . . There is a recognition that the modification has to occur at a much wider level. It has to be widespread. It has to be there to meet the children where they are and prepare a path for them, a path that will equip them for success in terms of being able to have a certain quality of life.

“Equip them for the workplace, equip them for whatever constitutes their work in terms of personal skill sets. We have to train them now to understand that in the 21st century, they will have to learn and relearn, bringing an attitude for a lifelong education,” Senator Morris said.

(FW)