Education minister pledges fairer system to replace 11-plus

Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman will announce a new, fairer system for transitioning students into secondary school soon, he said as he reaffirmed the government’s decision to abolish the decades-old 11-plus exam.

“We have to settle on that shortly, within another week or so. I’ll be coming to Parliament making a ministerial statement as to what the future of that transition will look like,” Blackman told graduates, parents and teachers at the St Alban’s Primary School graduation on Wednesday.

He declared that the exam, which he described as elitist, no longer serves Barbados. 

“This exam has not and cannot and will not determine your futures whatsoever at all,” he said. “Parents, this is to you especially: be proud of your children and their performance.”

Blackman said the test, founded on the British system, was “an experiment which the British have long passed because they realise the model on which it is based is no longer useful for a modern society, because it was built on a system that perpetuates inequality and elitism.”

He acknowledged that it “placed undue pressure on 11-year-olds to test them in English, Maths and Composition and, according to our societal structure, determines if you have succeeded or not.”

The minister urged Barbadians to break the habit of linking people’s worth to the schools they attended. 

“Within the first five minutes of meeting anybody for the first time . . . people ask you, ‘So where you went school?’ Not so? As if it has some social currency,” he said.

Blackman outlined broader plans for education reform in Barbados.

The education minister promised that students would leave school with real-world skills—including the ability to earn money before graduation.

“They’re gonna be building a system where students can actually learn to produce beats and music in school . . . so that when they leave school, they’re already leaving school not just with their skill, but with the ability to do things in real life,” Blackman said.

He added that students would also be able to learn artist management and the basics of the entertainment business, skills that “this economy needs to go further, but no one teaches in our school system.”

Minister Blackman called on parents to encourage children to learn more languages, saying the next generation must compete globally: “The world requires them now to be polyglots . . . speaking many, many languages, not just English, French, German, Arabic, Chinese.”

He added that young people’s business ideas will be supported through a national trust fund, giving them savings they can access when they turn 18 to buy land, invest or continue their studies.

 “So that our children leave school with real-life skills, revenue, and are ready for the world,” he said. (LG)