Crawford details 10-year 'pattern of underperformance' in education

Opposition spokesperson on education Damion Crawford says for 10 years there has been a “pattern of underperformance” in education under the current administration, pointing to thousands of students who failed numeracy and literacy in the 2024 Primary Exit Profile exams.

Crawford, who was speaking at a People’s National Party (PNP) press conference on Thursday, said 13,416 students did not achieve proficiency in mathematics.

In English Language, he said 11,098 students failed to achieve basic proficiency. The average cohort is between 33,000 and 36,000 students.

“Cumulative for the period 2016 to present over 95,000 students have not achieved proficiency in mathematics in the last nine years,” said Crawford.

He said Jamaica’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) pass rates have also dropped, noting that in 2015, the average for students achieving five or more subjects including mathematics and English was 25.6 per cent. It has since moved to 18 per cent.

“So, therefore at the end, the collective test of CXC at the end of your school experience in Jamaica we have seen a 7-percentage point drop since 2015,” the senator said.

“This might sound alarming to many but if you should look at our literacy results, this has also fallen from 86 per cent in 2015 to 67 per cent in 2024,” he added.

He said the placement of students according to average creates a disadvantage to those schools but creates an opportunity for targeted intervention.

Crawford said there is a serious disconnect between what the Government said is happening in classrooms and what the data show is happening in real life.

He said each year, the ministry reports near-total literacy success at Grade 4.

He said in 2018, the Government reported that 83 per cent of students achieved mastery or near mastery in literacy. In 2024, that figure fell to 65.1 per cent mastery.

“But just four years after the 2018 cohort — when those students turned 15 — Jamaica participated in the PISA international assessment in 2022. The results were devastating. Only 1 per cent of Jamaican 15-year-olds reached the top levels of reading proficiency (Level 5 or above) and 50 per cent of students scored below Level 2, the minimum global benchmark for reading competence. So what happened between Grade 4 and Grade 9?” he questioned.

He said the country is left with two possible explanations of either a massive learning loss, where students are mastering reading at Grade 4 but are not supported thereafter, with the system failing to reinforce literacy, causing skills to leak away; or inflated results, where the Grade 4 assessment is misleading, giving the illusion of literacy when comprehension and critical thinking are lacking.

“Either way, the system is failing and the Government refuses to acknowledge or address it,” he said.

Crawford said the education system needs three levels of immediate intervention, starting with an overhaul of the systematic challenges facing education. This, he said, includes teacher migration, classroom resources, curriculum alignment, accountability, and funding mechanisms.

The next step, he said, is to correct the inadequacies of primary schools by ensuring that mastery is real and durable and not a number on a paper.

He said this must be followed by an implementation of effective remedial efforts at the secondary level. For students who failed earlier, he said targeted interventions must follow – reading recovery, math support, tutoring.

“This is how we mop up the flood,” he said.

- Kimone Francis

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