Hanover not the 'worst parish' to educate children

Claudia Gardner, Assignment Coordinator

WESTERN BUREAU:

Outgoing principal of the Rusea's High School in Hanover, June Thompson, has weighed in on the ranking of the parish of Hanover as the "worst parish in Jamaica to educate your child" by educatejamaica.org.

In its publication titled The Best Secondary Schools' Guide, educateja maica.org states that the ranking was an indication of the parish in which a child is likely to have the "best educational experience" and "was calculated by taking all the schools in each parish and averaging the percentage of grade 11 cohorts attaining five subjects, including mathematics and/or English" in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations of 2012.

"We have to be careful about the message we are sending out to the children and parents who are not so knowledgeable as they will panic and will try to put their basket where they cannot reach it," Thompson told Western Focus.

"Some of Hanover's best GSAT students go to schools in other parishes - St James, St Elizabeth, Trelawny to schools like Hampton, Munro and even as far as Knox College - the schools they perceive to be performing. However, here at Rusea's High School, when we get our GSAT results and we do our data analysis, 66 per cent of our students are from the parish of St James," she said.

She added: "However, when the students do come here, we strive to provide for them in a holistic way in terms of co-curricular and academics. So I think whoever is collating the data should look at the input into each institution, and at the end of the five years, what value has been added because we all know children learn differently and have different strengths and weaknesses."

Thompson said schools in rural parishes such as Hanover were also at a disadvantage with respect to accessing resources from the Ministry of Education in stark contrast to their Corporate Area counterparts.

"I came to Rusea's from an upgraded high school in St Catherine, and I realise Rusea's is deficient in receiving materials from the Ministry of Education. The schools in these regions are neglected. So you have the human resources but not the basic infrastructure," she said.

"Last year, half of my grade seven students did not get any textbooks through the book-rental programme because the Ministry of Education does not have any money to pay the truck to take them here, so far out of town. I used my car and took some books for the CSEC students because it was crucial. The grade sevens have still not received that batch of books," she added.

SEVERELY FLAWED

Pertaining to the ranking of schools based solely on the percentage of students attaining passes in five or more subjects, including mathematics or English language in the 2012 CSEC examinations, Thompson said this was severely flawed as many students had sat and passed subjects, including mathematics and English, as far back as grade nine. She said Rusea's was not in support of the practice of disallowing students to sit some subjects before reaching fifth form as this retarded their development.

"The school does not endorse them sitting subjects at grade nine and grade 10, but there are parents who insist and send students to the evening classes and have them sit the exams at grades nine and 10. When we are recording, it is not recorded in this batch, and sometimes they don't see them with the English and math, but they are already holders of English and math because their parents have sought to have them sit it privately," she said.

"There was a boy in grade 11 that I had to ask his parents to take him because at grade 10, he already had passed 10 subjects and was coming here to sleep in the day and was just waiting to go to sixth form. He did no work. At grade nine, he did five (subjects), and at grade 10, he did five, and he passed them with ones, twos, and threes. So when they are doing the data, they should ask, 'How many of your students already sat mathematics and English', and then you would get a true picture," she said.

The Best Secondary Schools' Guide, according to educatejamaica.org, will be published annually and was "designed to help parents and carers of children leaving primary schools going into secondary schools to select the best school to send their children to, thus giving their children the best opportunity at a great education.

"Our guide aims to help parents make a more informed choice as to which secondary school they send their children to, and we have used performance indicators that measure this well. The indicators give an excellent indication of the performance of the schools as well as the results your children will likely leave the school with by the end of grade 11," the organisation stated in the guide.