I AM in agreement with the plan by Education Minister Andrew Holness to phase out the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and adopt a more equitable method of placing our children in secondary schools. Like the minister, I believe the GSAT merely serves to perpetuate a two-tiered secondary-education system, which further helps to foster the two-Jamaicas syndrome, and encourages and compounds the many social challenges we continue to face as a nation.

Serious disparity

The GSAT, except for allowing all grade-six students to sit the exam, does not appear to differ much from the Common Entrance Exam of my time that selected and tested only those students considered more likely to make it to traditional high schools. For the higher a child's GSAT marks, the more likely said child will be placed in a traditional high school; and a child with lower GSAT marks is likely to be placed in one of the so-called newly upgraded high schools or all-age schools, which usually offer a lower quality education. Thus, the serious disparity in the secondary-education system continues.

The principal focus of our primary-education system should be to prepare and develop our children to ensure their basic competence to enable them the foundation for a solid high-school education. The planned shifting of the focus from the GSAT to the Grade Four Literacy Test, which will give each child up to five attempts to acquire the literacy skills necessary for his transitioning to high school, should help greatly in this regard.

To the extent a child continues to have or exhibit difficulties attaining mastery or improving his literacy skills, it should become necessary for him to be placed in a special-education class so that he can be given the necessary assistance particularised to his circumstance or situation.

There are many children with learning disabilities of varying degrees and forms in Jamaica. Those children must be dealt with appropriately instead of just being neglected or allowed to advance through the education system without acquiring the necessary competence.

I am, etc.,

KEVIN K.O. SANGSTER

sangstek@msn.com