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There will be no National Test in 2017.
Hundreds of parents and pupils yesterday breathed a sigh of relief as chief education officer in the Ministry of Education, Harrilal Seecharan, said, “We have taken the decision in the ministry to not go ahead with the National Test in 2017.”
Announcing the decision during a press conference at the Ministry of Education, Port-of-Spain yesterday, Seecharan said the decision was based on concerns from a number of stakeholders.
The decision arose during the national education consultations which took place in February, following which the recommendations were presented to and later accepted by the Cabinet.
Seecharan explained: “What we are currently doing is reviewing the National Test to place by placing greater emphasis on an assessment for learning.
“It no longer will have that role of comparing schools and comparing students, but we will focus on using the data to improve teaching and learning.”
It was usually administered at the end of the school year, to all Standard One and Standard Three students attending public and private primary schools.
The National Test was an annual standardised examination covering the subjects of Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.
The objectives included gathering information for decision-making at the school, district and national levels; identifying areas of the system that require further investigation; identifying national norms; comparing students’ performance by school and educational districts; and tracking students’ progress through school.
Having already scrapped the Continuous Assessment Component (CAC) and reverted to the original format at the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam in which students are only tested in the areas of Maths, Language Arts and Creative Writing, Seecharan said discussions had also centered around removing School-Based Assessments (SBA’s) at the CAPE Units 1 and 2.
Indicating the ministry’s failure to act in this area, he said it had to be a regional decision and was not up to them to decide on its removal.
Seecharan also assured the ministry was working on ensuring the seamless transition between Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and the primary level, and had embarked on implementing a quality assurance system in this regard.
He added the ministry was developing a policy to guide ICT implementation in schools, which would soon be completed and presented to the ministry’s strategic executive team.
Having been given the go-ahead by Cabinet to procure laptops for students, Seecharan said they were in the process of preparing tender documents and were now awaiting the release of funds to move the process along.
