Mixed reaction continues on additional school year
Today the realities of an additional school year is even clearer in the heads of parents whose students are going into the fifth form come September, the beginning of the 2015 - 2016 academic year.
In giving remarks and reports at the graduation ceremony at the Multi-Purpose Sports Complex, both the Minister for Education and Culture Honourable Myron V. Walwyn and Acting Principal Ms Sandy M. Underhill reminded that the additional school year begins this September, 2015.
Not everyone looking forward to additional school year
For many of those parents it has been a long and well planned out year as they were well ready to see their children move on to college or other higher level of learning. They were, however, left with no choice but to shift those plans for 2017 as with the additional school year there will be no graduation after completing fifth form but rather at the end of completing the sixth form.
"This thing we cannot do anything about it now, the Minister made his decision, we were not given the opportunity to study this and agree or disagree it was just thrown on us and we have to accept it," said a parent last evening June 25, 2015 while at the ESHS graduation.
It was a view shared by several other parents. "This is going to be one more hard year for us as parents, already it's a challenge having our kids in that school, especially with all the bad eggs sticking on the clothes of children who want to learn, it's going to be really tough. This needed more discussion and the minister needed to examine it more carefully especially from the small man's level," added another parent.
‘A Levels, CXC better options’
It was a general census among the parents that a sixth form should have been optional and, like many other sister Caribbean countries where there is sixth form, it should be for 'A' levels. "That's what makes sense. And what would make more sense is for them to cut out the School Leaving Examination and let the kids put all their energies into doing CXC which is a Caribbean examination. School leaving can only get them to HLSCC but CXC can get them anywhere in the Caribbean," opined Ms Delma Gracio-Stevens.
"With CXC many of them can go further their studies in Guyana, Trinidad, and Barbados. Those countries have top of the line tertiary schools and even CXC gets them in good colleges and universities in the [United] States," added Ms Gracio-Stevens.
"Another thing we needed to look at is that one year is like keeping them back more than pushing them forward because that year would have been the completion of their first year at college. Look at some of the kids’ age, look at cost of living going up and up, look at salaries not increasing, look at resorts closing down, these things adding more burden on parents," added the woman.
About the additional school year
"We are not adding sixth form as it is known in other Caribbean countries or the United Kingdom. What we are doing is adding an additional year to the school lifecycle in order to give our students the time needed to complete the curriculum and hence allow them to be ready when they leave the secondary level to go on to tertiary education or the world of work," Minister for Education and Culture Honourable Myron V. Walwyn had said back in September 2014 as he sought to bring clarity to the additional school year.
He had also explained that the initiative within the school system will result in children having thirteen years of schooling instead of twelve, from Kindergarten through Grade 12.
At that time he had said he was aware that there would be some issues that would come with the additional year including space, additional teachers and need for more resources; however, he assured they would have discussed these potential issues and put measures in place to address them.
Hon Walwyn had also said the Ministry of Education and the Education of Department did hold consultations with the public, teachers and principals on the additional year.
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15 Responses to “Mixed reaction continues on additional school year”
I do not understand why we continue to be fooled by these ministries who claim CXCs makes it easier for students or adding a extra grade makes it easier. It makes no difference with us implementing the SAT exams. Even a student who graduates from a US high school without doing these exams will not get in. CXC is nothing compared to those exams. And the minister plans on taking out the school leaving exam is preposterous. For it is well known that the school leaving exams is harder than the CXC examinations. We should be working to get our school leaving exams regionally recognized and not lower our standards for credentials that are only worth something in the Caribbean.