ZACCA

Christopher Zacca, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), is blaming the poor performance of students in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations on the management of schools and teacher training.

The Gleaner's Education 2020 editorial project, published on April 8 and which ranks high schools according to their performance in English and maths, has unveiled some worrying findings. In some instances, upgraded high schools failed to register a single pass in maths and English.

"I think that clearly the results that are produced by our education system are not adequate to provide the kind of human resources we need as a nation to grow and develop," Zacca told The Gleaner.

He said the poor performances of students are related to a range of factors, including management of schools, administration, teacher quality, teacher training, and compensation.

"I think one of the things that we would like to see from the PSOJ end is a better monitoring of the standards in schools and action taken to maintain standards and to react when standards fall below the accepted or set standard," the PSOJ president said.

Zacca said the PSOJ has an active education committee which works closely with stakeholders.

He noted that education was a big subject in the national summit, held last November between the PSOJ and the government, adding that the approach to solving the problem is to "help and not to tear down".

Principals of some of the institutions that ranked poorly, based on their CSEC score, have refused to take the blame for their students' low performances, claiming their institutions are given students who are at the bottom of the scale, which forces institutions to do significant remedial work.

Omar Azan, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, said urgent education reform is needed if the country is to grow.