Education minister sticks to GSAT results assessment

Education Minister Andrew Holness is standing by his ministry's assessment of the 2011 Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) results, arguing that the process it used to determine that students have done better this year than last year is the same it has been using for the past 11 years.

Holness was responding to former president of the People's National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) Damion Crawford, who claimed yesterday that the statistics showing an improvement in the subjects do not provide an accurate picture as some 6,200 students who performed poorly in their school work were not allowed to sit the exam.

misconception

According to Crawford: "The minister proudly though incorrectly boasted that the results this year in the GSAT exams are better than that of last year, which is actually an incorrect statement, one that must be corrected for fear that policy will be educated by this misconception."

He added: "I remember the years of Common Entrance when mental ability would show three squares and a circle and ask you to choose the one that is different. It would seem from the minister's analysis of the GSAT results, he would have ignored the circle and shaded one of the squares, showing that he has not mastered the concept of the impracticability of comparing apples and oranges."

Education Minister Andrew Holness had announced on Tuesday during a press conference that there were increases in three of the five subject areas.

The mean score in mathematics increased by five percentage points to 61.9 this year from 56.9 in 2010; science showed an increase of 3.7 percentage points and communication task by 4.3 percentage points.

Crawford said that for the minister to argue that 2011 - minus the weakest students - outperformed 2010, inclusive of the weakest students, he would have had to have assumed that the 6,200 supposedly illiterate students would have achieved, on average, a score close to 61.9 per cent.

He, however, said if this assumption is correct, then the minister would have to explain why they were not allowed to sit the exams.

"I sincerely hope that the minister is not spitefully manipulating the numbers in an effort to mislead the public into thinking things are better than they really are," Crawford said.

In response, Holness said: "The average statistics and all other statistics are made public and I hope (Crawford) will come to the ministry to do his own analysis rather than to speak from an uninformed basis."