Though there is some improvement in the primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams compared to previous years, there is still a literacy crisis in Jamaica. Students are leaving primary schools unable to read. There needs to be a mandatory programme that ensures that children are reading at least at their grade level.End automatic grade moves.

Fixing the literacy crisis

29 Jun 2023

WHEN SHE briefed reporters last week on the performance of grade-six students in this year’s Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams, Fayval Williams, the education minister, made a profoundly obvious, yet very important observation.

There was, she said, “a lot of work to do”in Jamaica’s primary schools. The early-childhood sector, the minister added, also needed attention, so that when children enter the primary system “they can start at higher levels”.

This newspaper would add that the same observation applies to the island’s secondary schools, especially with respect to remedial education for the ill-prepared students they receive from the primary system.

Yet, what Ms Williams did not do was offer anything new, creative, or robustly engaging that is capable, in the near term, of lifting the island’s primary and secondary schools out of their deep crisis.

Her mandate, therefore, must be a redefinition of the central mission of Jamaica’s primary schools, to be relentlessly pursued over the next three to five years: no child must end their primary education, that is, complete grade six, without being fully literate, and appropriately proficient for the grade level in basic mathematics.

In other words, each child, at the end of grade six, must be able to read, write and comprehend in English, and be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Any child without a learning disability who does not meet these basic standards must not be transitioned to a secondary school until the deficits are made up in class and/or special after-school programmes.

As a corollary to this initiative, it must be a mandate that at secondary schools, no student must be promoted to a higher grade if he or she is incapable of performing at that grade level. Put differently, massive effort in remedial teaching and learning must be undertaken in English and basic mathematics at the island’s high schools.

ANALYTICAL THINKING

The Gleaner proposes these initiatives on two grounds: one, while we are encouraged by the reported improved outcomes in this year’s PEP exams, we believe that the implied process for lifting Jamaica out of its education quagmire is likely to be too tortuous and slow; two, our recommendations are primarily about borrowing and adapting systems that have worked in other jurisdictions that have faced similar crises.

Introduced i n 2019, PEP, which places greater emphasis on analytical thinking than its predecessors, is designed to assess the education levels of students as they leave the primary system. In Jamaica’s highly uneven, and often elitist, secondary education system, performance in the exams is used to determine the high schools into which students are placed. Those with the best results go to schools with the greatest prestige, which generally correlates with performance.

Prior to the exams, students are given, in order of rank, seven schools they wish to attend. Only 22 per cent of the 36,105 students who did the tests got their first choice, 15 per cent got their second choice, and 12 per cent their third.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-class teaching was suspended, PEP was adjusted to accommodate the circumstances. So, this year’s results, according to Minister Williams, are the only ones directly comparable with those for 2019.

According to Ms Williams, 60 per cent of the students were deemed to be ‘proficient’ or ‘highly proficient’ in language arts, compared to 55 per cent in 2019, when 41,548 students took the tests. That is 15 per cent more than in 2023.

In mathematics, this year 57 per cent were on the scale of proficient or highly proficient as against 21 per cent five years ago.

INTENSIVE SUPPORT

We welcome these improvements. But what the results also reveal is that in language arts, nearly 12,000 (33 per cent) of the students are ranked in the developing stage on the proficiency spectrum, and, in accordance with the education ministry’s explanation of the system, will require“targeted academic support at grade seven”. More than 2,500 others (seven per cent), who are at the beginners’ level, “will need intensive, ongoing support at grade seven”.

That, however, is not all. In maths, 43 per cent (over 15,500 students) will need targeted support or intensive support. The same thing applies, to varying, but not insignificant degrees, in other subjects.

At the same time, high-school teachers are expected to deliver the secondary curriculum not only to ‘proficient’ students, but to the large swathes who lack the foundation to grasp the concepts they attempt to teach. The system , therefore, is on a treadmill that both expands and runs exponentially faster each year.

In the United States, several southern states, notably Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia, found themselves in similar positions. They have turned around. People now talk about the ‘Mississippi Miracle’.

A dozen years ago that state was the worst in America for reading by grade-four students. Last year, it was 21st among the 50 states. These days, 87 per cent of Mississippi’s students graduate high school, a 12 percentage point improvement since 2013 and one point above the national average.

What made the difference in Mississippi, and other states that followed suit, was the state legislature’s passage in 2013 of its Literacy-Based Promotions Act. It prevents children being promoted beyond grade three if they do not read at their appropriate grade levels. Higher benchmark reading standards were also phased in, and summer classes and additional tests were made mandatory for students who fall behind. New approaches to teaching children to read were also introduced.

Jamaica does not have to reinvent the wheel.

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