by Sandy Deane
Barbados (Barbados Today ) – A leading education expert Wednesday declared that Caribbean education ministers are perpetuating “an injustice” by pressing ahead with their own plans for primary school students to sit the common entrance examinations despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent volcanic eruptions in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
In a strong statement, Professor S Joel Warrican, Director of the School of Education at UWI Cave Hill, said it is hypocritical for the governments to press CXC to respond to the plight of secondary school students when they are bent on staging national primary exit exams.
Professor Warrican said: “While persons point to the plight of the secondary-school age students and the perceived injustice being dealt to them by CXC, I believe that they are overlooking another injustice wrought by others in a different quarter.
“Here I am speaking of the injustice perpetuated by said Ministries of Education that, in the face of all the trauma, have still found a way of ensuring that primary school students write the common entrance examination (known by different names in different countries in the region, but the same beast!).
“Ministries of Education are finding it convenient and safe for these children to return to in-person classes in schools in this, the third term of the academic year so that they can be “adequately” prepared to write this ‘screening’ test.”
He questioned the moral grounds on which the education ministries that uphold “this inequitable system” appeal to CXC as he accused the ministries of applying a double standard.
