Pupils ‘overcome COVID ordeal to return good marks in annual exam

Despite battling the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, students across the island performed relatively well in this year’s Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination (BSSEE).

That was the assessment given by Minister of Education, Technological and Vocational Training Santia Bradshaw who said the decision to push back the exam by 11 weeks as well as the implementation of a readiness assessment, appeared to have a positive impact on the final scores.

Speaking during a virtual press conference this afternoon to announce the results of the exam commonly referred to as the 11-Plus, Bradshaw said the move to delay the exam which is usually held in the first week of May, until July 28 had paid dividends.

Additionally, she said the worrying results of the readiness assessment which was conducted on May 12 at public and private schools, prompted the ministry to proceed with face-to-face classes for those students.

“As many of you are aware we made the decision to delay the exams from the first week of May until July 28. It was clear to us then when we carried out the readiness assessment that we were seeing significant learning deficits amongst our students as many of them did not cope well in the online environment

“After consultation with Class 4 teachers and principals it was felt that 11 additional weeks of face-to-face instruction would make a significant difference in the preparation of these students who would have been severely impacted by the pandemic,” Bradshaw said.

She revealed that while the national mean in the readiness assessment in Mathematics was 41 per cent, in the 11-Plus examination the national mean rose to 55.64 per cent, a marginal 2.6 per cent decline from 2020.

She said in this year’s examination, 702 students scored less than 30 per cent, 1256 students scored between 30 and 69 and 1292 scored between 70 and 100 marks.

According to the minister, the number of students who scored 100 per cent in Maths improved from 24 in 2020 to 37 this year.

She said in English the national mean in the readiness assessment was 63 per cent. That improved slightly in the 11 Plus examination to 66.28 per cent.

She also disclosed that 245 students scored less than 30 per cent, 1303 scored between 30 and 69 while 1788 scored between 70 and 100 marks.

“The truth of the matter is that this reinforces that while this is not a perfect result this year, it does show that face-to-face instruction over the 11 weeks made a major difference in the overall performance of our students. In other words, things could have been far worse if we had just returned to school and had the examination on the scheduled date,” Bradshaw maintained.

“The national mean which is a statistical measure used to analyze students’ performance when compared over the three-year period showed that there was no significant difference in students’ performance in Mathematics and English,” Bradshaw pointed out.

She announced that Elena Bohne from the St Angela’s School was the top performing girl having scored 100 in Mathematics and 98 in English.  Jeremiah Browne of St Stephen’s was the top boy gaining 98 in Maths and 99 in English. They will both be headed to Queen’s College.

Bradshaw revealed that of the 3336 students who
wrote the BSSEE, 3173 or 95.1 per cent were allocated to
secondary schools. Of that number, she said 11 were early sitters.

She said the ministry had also granted 117 deferrals.

While she did not say if this year’s BSSEE would be the last, Bradshaw said plans were already underway to find a substitute for the controversial exam.
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)