Education ministry defends literacy plan amid failure prediction

The Ministry of Education has pledged to press ahead with its new national reading drive, Project SOAR, despite an education expert’s sharp criticism that warned the programme risks falling short of its goals.

Project SOAR (Strengthen Our Ability to Read), announced in a ministerial statement by Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman as part of a package of reforms to the education system, aims to ensure every child can read by age seven.

“The initiative of SOAR . . . is to allow for our people to be able to read,” Blackman said. “Persons who would have already passed the age of seven and are not able to read in the way that we would like; there are programmes also being rolled out to ensure that that can be met. Adult literacy is critical.”

Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw reported that the literacy timetable was already in motion: “You have students in the classroom reading books, teachers are actively teaching reading, and it’s very important that we stress this because we recognise that over the past decade or more the ability to read has dropped significantly.

“We analysed our Criterion Reference Test scores in English. We also analysed the performance of our students in the Barbados Secondary School Examination, and we saw that there was a need for us to place focus on literacy.

“About a year and a half ago, we started to train our teachers in the teaching of reading. We also encouraged Erdiston Teachers’ Training College to implement continuous professional development workshops for our teachers so that they have that ability.

“Over the course of the academic year, we’ll be implementing four structured reading programmes. These include Jolly Phonics, the Hegarty Phonemic Awareness, Snappy Sounds, and the Lindamood-Bell programme.

“Before, we utilised an eclectic approach to reading, but we realised that that is not working to our favour. As a result, we need to have a more structured approach, and this is the reason that we decided to have this period where the teachers can focus on structured reading. In an effort to close the gap by December 2026, we had to ensure that there was an intensive focus on the ability to read.”

Project SOAR was challenged last week by veteran educator Dr Ian Marshall, who warned that without proper diagnostic groundwork and targeted support, the scheme could turn into a well-meaning gesture that fails the very pupils it intends to help. He said he was troubled by the absence of diagnostic testing to assess the extent of reading challenges and questioned how a 35-minute daily slot could cater to such wide variations in ability.

Marshall cautioned that literacy problems cannot be solved in large-group settings and warned that, if poorly executed, the daily reading period could deepen children’s aversion to reading. While emphasising that he supported literacy interventions in principle, he urged policymakers to stop treating education as “a PR exercise” and to focus on what he called “the children’s future”. (SZB)