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Education stakeholders mull PEP exam options

Published:Monday | April 27, 2020 | 12:15 AM
Swaby
Swaby

STAKEHOLDERS IN the local education sector are weighing in with varied views on how the impending 2020 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations for students in grades four through six should be administered.

The series of tests which assesses students’ strengths and weaknesses, and their readiness for grade seven, was originally scheduled for February 25 through June 26, but postponed until further notice due to the March outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Jamaica.

As at March 13, 2020, when the Government ordered all schools in the island closed, only one of five tests – the grade-six PEP Ability Test – had been conducted. Schools will remain closed until May 31.

TECH SOLUTION

Gordon Swaby, CEO of EduFocal, an online learning platform, is of the view that the annual examinations can be facilitated using technological solutions ahead of the close of the 2019-2020 academic year.

“I am definitely pro the exam happening, but we have to employ creative ways using technology to make it happen; and I know that the Ministry of Education and E-Learning Jamaica are looking at ways to facilitate it,” said Swaby.

“I think that within the next month, we will be far advanced in being able to deliver the exams to the students …. While we know that there will be challenges, I am confident that solutions exist that can cater to all students,” he added.

Meanwhile, President of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association Owen Speid, during a television interview aired on April 22, 2020, outlined that grade-five scores, along with the single PEP Ability Test conducted on February 25, could suffice. “We are not going to get back into the regular classroom setting [before June] and if you are looking at placing the children anytime soon, then I can’t see us delaying it and waiting for the traditional sitting to take place. I think that is the way to go,” he declared.

Chevel Scott Johnson, grade-six teacher at the Devon Primary School in Christiana, Manchester, is of the opinion that when exams are eventually conducted, students should be tested on pre-coronavirus (terms one and two) syllabus topics. “Term three would start after the Easter break, so whatever they are going to put on the exam should be mostly from terms one and two,” she said.