Education Minister Anthony Garcia said the creative writing scores for this year’s SEA examination were low when compared to last year and one resulting factor was the regurgitation of essays.
He was responding to questions from members of the media after delivering the feature address at the opening of the Knowledge Marketplace titled Re-envisioning Education in T&T; Evidence at Work for improved policy and practice- Researching now; Impacting the future held at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain yesterday.
“The marks the students made this year were somewhat lower than the marks the students made last year. However, the creative writing component last year stretched over a period of two years where the students were asked to write ten essays and during that process they were approached on how to write properly and five of those top scripts were sent for assessment.
“It is a totally different method of assessment that was entered into this year,” Garcia said.
The CAC Component focused on report writing only.
On whether the low marks could be attributed to narrative writing being reintroduced at a late stage to effectively prepare students for this year’s exam, Garcia said, this was not the case.
“What has happened in many cases was that children regurgitated what they have learnt or have been forced to learn.
“Even when I wrote the common entrance exam we were given a model essay and I remember up to this day some paragraphs. What has been happening is in many cases children are given some model essays and therefore there is panic if there is some shift,” Garcia said.
Asked to identify what schools scored below 30 per cent this year the minister said he he did not have that information available.
Pressed as what areas performed low Garcia said, “It is spread over the seven educational districts in Trinidad.”
Regarding the querying of this year’s results by many parents Garcia admitted that many were still seeking transfers for their children.
“In fact I personally have been receiving a number of calls from parents seeking transfers for their children,” Garcia said, adding that it was still too early to determine whether the number of parents who wanted transfers were more than that of last year as registration was only completed late last week.
“There is a process which must be followed whether people are seeking transfers and firstly the child must be registered at the assigned school. That information must be passed on to the school supervisors and to the officers in the Education Ministry who are dealing with transfers and depending on the availability of space and the performance of the child... these are some of the considerations,” Garcia added.
On criticism made by former education minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh about the current education system Garcia said, “ He (Gopeesingh) seems to have a big problem in understanding that he is no longer the Minister of Education. In spite of what he says I stand firm in the belief that our education system has been moving forward and he has been disingenuous in some of the statistics he has been producing.”
Garcia added that under his purview there has been a tremendous reduction in indiscipline in schools and an improvement in the quality of work among students.