Ralph Thompson
THE MINISTRY of Education is unwittingly misleading the public as to the true performance of Jamaican students in traditional and non-traditional high schools, according to veteran educator and member of the Government's Task Force on Education, Dr. Ralph Thompson.
Using the annual CXC results as a benchmark, Jamaican students are performing way below even what the 2004 Dennis Minott Report on the 2003 CXC results revealed. The controversial Minott Report had given some of the island's top traditional high schools a failing grade for academic performance.
Dr. Thompson noted that the Ministry of Education traditionally calculates CXC pass rates as a percentage of students allowed to sit rather than as a percentage of the cohort of students in school.
"The only way to test the degree to which the teaching process is succeeding or failing is to calculate the per cent of passes against the total school cohort. To do otherwise, especially in the case of English and mathematics, the two most important foundation subjects, is statistically meaningless and misleading," Dr. Thompson stated.
In May this year, Dr. Minott rated more than half the high and secondary level schools in the island below C level. His analysis was based on the National Council on Education's (NCE) 2003 CXC examination performance review.
LEADERSHIP IN SCHOOLS
Dr. Minott analysed 16 of the 34 subjects offered at the CXC level. He blamed the poor performance of students on the leadership in schools, a claim vehemently opposed by school administrators.
However, Dr. Thompson noted that much will be dependent on individual principals, as they have sole discretion as to how many of their students may sit the examinations and this discretion may vary from school to school. So, for instance if a large number of students were performing below standard, a school could decide not to allow them to sit the exams.
For instance, Calabar High School had a total cohort of 401, but allowed only 206 students to sit the English exam. Only 67 passed, a pass rate of 16.7 per cent. In the official statistics from the Ministry of Education, Calabar's pass rate is given as 33 per cent, 100 per cent better than the actual performance.
"Such absurd statistical manipulation must stop. Based on the methodology set out above, the bad news is that all secondary schools traditional secondary schools, non-traditional secondary schools and technical high schools have performed poorly in the 2004 CXC exams," Dr. Thompson said.
Dorett Campbell, communications manager at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday that the point made by Dr. Thompson is valid, "but this year, the analysis is being done on the cohort of students and not on the number of students who sit the exams."
Ms. Campbell explained that the Education Ministry recognised that some principals were choosing to send their best students to sit some exams and so decided this year to conduct the analysis based on the cohort.
