2 weeks Ago By Sheria Brathwaite
I n an effort to address declining literacy and numeracy levels among Barbadian students, the Ministry of Education will conduct diagnostic screenings for 9 000 children next week Thursday and Friday. Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw announced the initiative on Monday during a tour of Springer Memorial School, emphasising the ministry’s commitment to evidence-based decision-making. “We are also pushing evidence-based decision making,” she said.
“We want our principals to continue to meet with their management teams, with the parents, with the students to see how we can help the students to grow from strength to strength so that they will be looking at student papers – their past papers –, they’ll be performing diagnostic assessments to make sure that students can really learn within the classroom.” You Might Be Interested In Ross University opens Barbados campus UWI supports innovation for regional growth St George Secondary closed next week “The Ministry of Education will be conducting a diagnostic assessment for third, fourth and fifth formers this September as well because in as much as our principals are working to help their children and to diagnose their needs, we as a ministry need to know as well how students are performing. You will be aware that the students from the second, third and fourth form did that assessment in 2022, and we want to see what their growth is, how well the principals and their teams have been working to help the children to achieve their outcomes.
” The literacy and numeracy scores of the children will be documented for data purposes, the chief education officer said. Bradshaw said: “You know that we have had some concerns relative to the Maths scores and English scores of our children at the secondary level. We also know that it stems from primary school.
We need to be able to diagnose the challenges that our children are having and develop targeted interventions for them. “We have been working with universities overseas to develop proposals that can assist, but we want to be more targeted in our interventions. Over the past year, Erdiston Teachers’ Training College has been tasked with offering workshops in the teaching of mathematics for our teachers to help them as well and those will continue,” Archer-Bradshaw said.
Over the past five years, an average of 11 500 students failed to meet the basic requirement of passing both Mathematics and English annually, significantly affecting their academic and employment prospects. Registrar and CEO of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Dr Wayne Wesley noted that this trend has negative implications for the region’s economic competitiveness. Head of the National Task Force on Literacy Education in Barbados, Dr Sylvia Henry also supported the findings of CXC, noting that at the local level, there was also great concern about the literacy rate among students.
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