Professor Hyacinth Evans, ContributorONCE AGAIN, the GSAT has been the subject of great debate in our society. Since its introduction six years ago, there have been public discussions, concerns expressed by parents and guardians, charges and countercharges made either at the time of the sitting of the examination or as in this case, at the publication of the results.
The GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) is one of the four tests administered under the National Assessment Programme (NAP) introduced as part of the reform of primary education in 1998. This comprehensive reform included inter alia, the introduction of the new curriculum, the upgrading of some primary and all-age schools and the new method of assessment of the primary curriculum (the NAP).
The four tests that make up the NAP (the Grade One Readiness Inventory, the Grade Three Diagnostic Test, the Grade Four Literacy Test and the Grade Six Achievement Test) are meant to improve the overall quality and efficiency of the primary system, and to provide data to teachers for ongoing improvements in their teaching. The Assessment Unit of the Ministry of Education is responsible for administering all these tests and for providing information to schools for this ongoing curriculum improvement. The results of the GSAT are due by June 30.
In 1998, the Common Entrance examination (CEE) was phased out because of the many problems associated with a selection device that was not related to the primary curriculum.
For many years, the CEE had performed a selective function in a system in which some high schools were selective and students had to be screened in order to gain admission to those schools. The other schools were "free flow." Students simply applied for admission. With the upgrading of those non-selective schools to high school status, it was anomalous to have a selective test that screened a few and rejected the rest. All high schools are now in the same category of school.
These developments which took place at roughly the same time as the introduction of the NAP led to the use of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) as a placement test for grade six students. The GSAT, which was originally designed to be a local test for teachers and schools, now became a national placement test for entry to high school. The GSAT thus became part of the national debate about access to high school, quality of education, equity, and social justice.
ASSESSMENT UNIT
The GSAT is prepared each year by qualified test developers in the Ministry of Education and Youth (MOEY) and represents a sample of the content of the grade six curriculum, which is taken by students in all primary and prep schools. After six years, teachers are better able to teach the curriculum because of the support provided by the Assessment Unit of the MOEY and the feedback they provide on students' performance on the grades one, three, and four tests. Students are doing better at the GSAT examination (as well as the three other tests that make up NAP).
It should be noted that for the first time the Assessment Unit also provided detailed reports to each school on its students' performance on each of the sub-tests in each subject as well as data on its performance relative to other schools.
There are five types of secondary level schools to which students can be admitted. These include the traditional high schools, the "upgraded" high schools, the technical high schools, the primary and junior high schools and a few all-age schools. The primary and junior high school is also an upgraded school - formerly an all-age school which now offers the ROSE curriculum.
The inclusion of a few all-age schools is an indication of the serious shortage of secondary places. The demand for placement in the traditional high schools results in part from their past academic performance, public perception of their quality, and the desire to be a student of an 'élite' school, and in part from the public perception of the quality of the upgraded high schools. Parents also choose schools because of the learning process, the quality of the teacher-student interaction, and the respect granted to students.
The traditional schools have a good reputation and are highly desired by most students who live in their vicinity, and are students' first, second or third choice. Many students choose these schools even though they live several miles away or in a different parish. And so, places in these schools are at a premium. These traditional high schools were established more than 50 years ago. (In the case of Wolmer's, more than 200 years ago.) So, the number of these schools is limited, and not growing, while the population is increasing.
PLACEMENT DECISIONS
Placement depends on three factors: performance on the GSAT, parental choice of school, and the availability of places in the school. Each child is allowed to indicate a choice of five schools at registration. The process is carried out in phases and is done electronically for the vast majority of students. The first step is to rank all students who sat the examination according to their performance scores. So, priority is given to the student's academic performance. Secondly, students' choice of school is considered.
Top scorers are placed first and so are assigned to their first choice of school. When places in a student's first choice school are exhausted, the second choice is considered and so on. As students are placed according to performance and then according to school choice, places in the highly desired schools are quickly exhausted.
The third criterion - availability of places within a school - then becomes operative. The lower the score that a student obtains, the less likely it is that that student will get placed in any of his or her schools of choice.
When a student does not get placed in a school of choice, the placement decision is made manually from a proximity list prepared by the regional office, a process requiring some negotiation with schools. This was the case with a very small percentage of students - six per cent of students, in 2006. For 94 per cent of students therefore, the entire placement process was done electronically - from the scoring of the test to the placement of the student who is identified only by an identification number.
This year, 51,204 students sat the exam, compared with 49,244 last year - an increase of roughly 2,000 students. This increase in the overall numbers combined with the system of cross - regional placement can make it difficult to determine how many students have to be manually placed in some areas.
Cross-regional placement is a system wherein a student in any part of the island can choose any school in the island. According to present placement policies, this choice has to be respected provided the other two criteria - performance and availability - are met.
This system can be compared with what obtains in some other Caribbean countries where schools are zoned and school choices are limited to a particular zone.
WHY A PLACEMENT TEST?
When the GSAT replaced the CEE, the test was changed but the context in which that test operated and had its impact did not. The fact is that we have a stratified school system in a socially stratified society. And there is a shortage of school places. At the moment, the placement process which gives priority to performance and school choice preserves this stratification.
The system of using placement tests for admission to high school is a continuation of the policy that existed in Jamaica (and in many other Commonwealth countries) when there was élite schooling for the few. This system continues in many developing countries. We can compare the system of using placement tests with the method of gaining admission to schools in Canada and the U.S.A.
There are no placement tests in these countries. To use Ontario as an example, students attend a neighbourhood school and are admitted on the basis of their performance during the final year of primary school (grade eight). Most schools are comprehensive high schools with two streams the academic and the technical/vocational streams. Students' performance in grade eight determines to which of these streams they will be admitted. High schools get their list of students from the primary schools in the neighbourhood and are obliged to accept all students on that list. The process is more or less similar in the U.S.A. except that there, parents are allowed more choice.
The use of the GSAT as a placement mechanism distorts its curricular function. Moreover, when used in a social context where there is stratification of schools and a shortage of places, it becomes a political ploy. Who has paid attention to the detailed reports on students' performance sent to each school at the end of June?
ACHIEVING QUALITY EDUCATION
The most viable solution to our dilemma is not to continue to manipulate admission but to improve the schools we have. One may ask: Why can the teachers in the upgraded school not achieve the same outcomes as those in the traditional high school? Much can be said about factors that influence student learning and achievement. We know that professional qualification (teacher training) makes a difference, as does level of subject matter knowledge. And it is true that there are more teachers with degrees in the traditional high school than in the upgraded high school, though there are more trained teachers in the upgraded high school. Nevertheless, these inputs - subject matter knowledge and professional training - are necessary but not sufficient to ensure quality teaching.
What is important is what happens at the school, the way in which teachers' work is structured, and the commitment on the part of teachers to achieve excellence in teaching. What we have learned from research is that at each school, there must be a shared commitment to student learning and a shared responsibility for student progress.
There must be opportunities for teachers to share their expertise and ideas about teaching, to engage in joint work - departmentally and otherwise - and to exercise teacher leadership in representing the curriculum to students. Complex tasks like teaching require strong lateral relations. Teaching is more complex as students become more diverse with challenging learning needs.
Teachers have an awesome responsibility to create meaning and understanding in students in addition to contributing to their development as wholesome human beings - no easy task even for parents.
We can no longer have teachers working alone for the most part in what one writer has called the lone wolf scenario. The sooner we recognise this fact about teaching, the sooner we will be able to work toward achieving quality education for all.
Hyacinth Evans is professor of teacher education at the University of the West Indies, Mona
