The Common Entrance Performance and Universal Secondary Education

As we move towards Universal Secondary Education there is great concern about the preparedness of the primary students for the upward move. This concern is based on the widely held belief that the children at the primary level are achieving far less than they should. There are, among others, three possible causes for this underachievement are:

1. poor curriculum delivery and supervision in the schools;
2. the pressure placed on teachers to limit their teaching to the demands of the Common Entrance;
3. the poor relationship between the community and the school.
   
   

Despite the concern the programme towards Universal Secondary education will proceed. Clearly, low achievement cannot be a justification for putting the programme on hold. What is interesting however is that the Common Entrance will still be a part of the process in the transition from primary to secondary school. However, it will not be as pivotal in the transition. It is still a competitive examination but the competition will be for school of choice rather than for mere admission to secondary school.

Although the role of the examination has changed, it is still the only indication we have about how much the children achieve in terms of the skills and knowledge to which they were exposed. Traditionally, the results of the examination has been used to sort and place the children in descending order. However, there has been little emphasis on their performance in the individual subject areas. Given the concern with the preparedness of the students for secondary education, serious analysis will have to be done to develop a picture of the response of the children the curriculum at the primary level.

The relevant persons at the Ministry have produced a comprehensive and detailed compilation of all aspects of the examination performance of the students. The results for the past five years have been put together in many ways. They have organised the results by school, district, sex and so on.. Commendation is in order for these workers. They have done a very good job and serious educators are encouraged to make use of this wealth of information to enhance their understanding of teaching/learning process of the primary schools. Take, for example, the reported pass rate for the individual subjects over the period 1998 to 2003 below in Table 1

Table 1. Common Entrance Pass Rate by Year and Subject

Before discussing the Table a brief explanation of the examination scores is in order. The Common Entrance is an achievement examination consisting of tests in English, Mathematics and General Paper. The tests are based on a curriculum prescribed by the Ministry of Education. In order to "pass" the examination each student needs to get a total of 150 marks for the three subjects out of a maximum of 300. However, students must get at least 33% of the total score for each subject. So a student cannot be deemed to have passed if s/he gets 170 marks but gets only 20% in Math.

Now, for the year 1998 in the Table 1, 1942 - roughly 72% of the students - entering the examination were successful in English. It should be noted that many of those passing this subject did not pass the examination overall. In fact, this is the pattern for all three subjects each year since pass rate for each one was reasonable.

So what does one make of this in terms of the preparedness of the children for secondary education? It would seem that the children are not too badly off as far as the mastery of their English curriculum goes. However, there is the general perception that this is not so when we consider the problems they experience with that subject in secondary school, especially at the CXC level. This is also the case with Mathematics.

This apparent discrepancy between the Common Entrance performance and the perceived preparedness for secondary education may be explained by the examination itself. And the issue of criteria comes immediately to mind. Is the criterion of 33% for a pass in each subject adequate for determining the preparedness of the children? Some people feel that 33% is too low for an achievement test since the students would have had prior exposure to what is being tested. However we look at it, this information about the performance of the children can give us an idea about what is happening generally at the primary level. This is crucial as we plan to deal with the expanded access to the secondary level.

The reported average scores will also give an even clearer picture of how well the students are prepared for secondary school because they give a more focused picture on the performance in the subject areas. The average scores for each year appear in Table 2 below.

Table 2. Average Scores by year and subject:

As we consider the scores we must remember that they represent the situation only for those children, taking the examinations. However, they represent a substantial portion of those who will be moving on to secondary school. Further, it must be borne in mind that all of the children taking the examination do not come from Grade 6, which is the transition point for secondary school.

The scores reflect a moderate performance and they are definitely not as dismal as many people think. In fact, it can be argued that we have something useful to work with as far as universal secondary education is concerned. Of course we will have to analyse the picture more closely to determine the extent to which we remediate in order to make the teaching and learning more effective. But it seems as if the concerns about the preparedness of the students are a bit exaggerated.

Let me hasten to say that this latter notion is based only on the performance of the children taking the examination and its validity will have to be taken into account. But, in any case, the scores will have to be an important point of departure in any discussion about universal access to secondary education.

Finally, I exhort all serious teachers and educators to go beyond the numbers of children gaining places to the way they performed in the examination. Comprehensive data have been presented; even the performance of the children in all of the school. The Ministry personnel have produced the information. Let us not waste it in the humdrum of unfounded assertions about the fitness for secondary education.

NOTE: Detailed information on the exams will soon be posted

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