Editorial | Sixth form scheme an unnecessary distraction

It should never be too late to reverse tack for the sensible course. But it seems that hubris, and fear of embarrassment, will keep the education ministry full speed ahead on its controversial and untimely Sixth Form Pathways Programme (SFPP), which few people in the education system understand, approve of, or are ready for.

Indeed, last week when the education minister, Fayval Williams, attempted to raise a cheer for the project during her speech at the annual conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), she was greeted with a resounding “no’’. Further, as this newspaper has reported, several schools are scrambling to put in place the systems, including classrooms, to accommodate SFPP students. In one case, in the eastern parish of St Thomas, the principal’s cottage at a school was being converted to a classroom.

But perhaps more symptomatic of the unreadiness for the scheme, and why the idea ought to have been part of a broader review of the education system, is that even the education ministry appears to be unclear of how many students are enrolled in the programme for the start of the school year.

In April, the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the Government’s information arm, quoted Ms Williams as telling Parliament that 19,122 students had already voluntarily signed up for what, from this September, will be an obligatory additional two years to their secondary education – 12,275 grade 12 students, and 6,847 at grade 13. Last week, at the JTA conference, Ms Williams put the enrolment at 17,000.

That’s a difference of more than 2,000 students or 12 per cent – a significant number of individuals who can’t have just vanished into thin air. The education authorities should account for the discrepancy and explain what number has been planned for and can indeed be accommodated.

GUARANTEED

As currently configured, Jamaican students are guaranteed at least five years of secondary education, up to grade 11, although some pursue an additional two years of schooling in mostly academic subjects, especially if they are looking for seamless matriculation to university. These are not the students who the SFPP is especially designed to accommodate. They would normally be in the system.

Rather, the aim is to cobble a fix to the shortcomings of a system where, after five years of secondary education, not much over 40 per cent of students pass five subjects in a single sitting in Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams – the minimum amount usually required for matriculation to tertiary education. When five subjects are passed in one sitting, 28 per cent of the students have both mathematics and English among them.

Under the SFPP, in addition to those students heading for the traditional academic sixth form, others, during the additional two years, will, on the basis of grades, either opt for technical-type programmes or seek skills for the general job market. Students, over the two-year period, will maintain their enrolment at the school they attended prior to entering the SFPP, even if they physically attend other institutions, including universities. Their schools of enrolment will be responsible for tracking their progress.

Minister Williams defended the decision to implement the programme as following through on an outstanding recommendation by the 2004 Rae Davis task force on education to extend, by two years, the schooling that Jamaican students receive. The Davis report, however, didn’t suggest merely tacking those two years at the secondary level. Rather, it called for the implementation of “a seamless K(indergarten) to 12 systems to include children aged 5 at the lower end of the system and an additional year at the upper end. This will result in an expansion of the number of years of schooling from 11 years to 13 years”.

At the secondary level, the Davis task force suggested that an assessment at grade nine be used to place students on either a two-year or three-year track or their CSEC exams. Normally students do the CSEC general proficiency exams at grade 11, but the task force recommended that those on a three-year track would do the basic proficiency tests in that grade, before moving to the general proficiency exam at grade 12.

SLEW OF RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendation of the Davis report, however, isn’t the issue at this point. That report has been overtaken by that of the Orlando Patterson-chaired commission on education transformation, whose document was turned in last September, before the public unveiling of the SFPP. Even as it places great focus on the need for Jamaica to fix grave problems in the early childhood sector as the foundation of the education system, the Patterson Commission offers a slew of recommendations for advancing technical and vocational education and training (TVET), including ideas for the certification of skilled people in the workforce.

Patterson’s recommendations are being sifted for implementation, with oversight by a broad-based, independent committee. It would have made sense that the SFPP be discussed in the context of the Patterson report to determine if it fits with those ideas, or which of them makes better sense. The education ministry’s move was, therefore, not only premature but provides an unnecessary distraction at a time when the focus should be on the Patterson report and recouping the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further, the Patterson report highlighted the weak information and data-gathering system in the education sector, including at the ministry that hampers good decision-making. We hope that in this scenario, keeping track of the performance of hundreds or thousands of SFPP students who are registered at one institution, but attending another, doesn’t turn out to be a fiasco.