Editorial | Ascot revisited

Even as principal Mark Jackson and his teachers at Ascot Primary School are rightly criticised for lacking emotional intelligence, their crude, two-tiered ‘graduation’ ceremony, based on performance in the PEP exams, should prompt deeper reflection on an issue they clumsily attempted to address: that education outcomes do, or should, matter.

The controversy will hopefully lead to two outcomes.

First, an end to the practice of promoting children annually despite their lack of grasp, at the appropriate age and grade levels, of foundational subjects critical to deeper learning in the language of instruction. This amounts to placing children on a conveyor belt to failure.

Second, the abolition (at least in government-controlled or supported institutions) of the long-standing practice of dressing young children in expensive attire, or having them wear mortarboards and gowns for graduation from basic and primary schools.

Ascot Primary, located in Portmore, like many primary schools, has traditionally staged these questionable graduation ceremonies. What sparked last week’s controversy was its decision to partially bifurcate the event.

In Jamaica, children complete primary education at grade six and sit the PEP (Primary Exit Profile) exams, which assess whether they meet the ‘proficient’ standard in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. This year, Ascot Primary decided that students who met the proficient threshold would form the first, or top, tier of ‘graduands’. This group would wear gowns and mortarboards and lead the procession. Their parents were required to pay J$26,000 for the regalia and associated events.

The second tier – students who did not meet the proficient standard – would wear different attire, without gowns or mortarboards, and pay $16,000.

While this was not the stated intention, as Mr Jackson explained to the education ministry, the outcome – which should have been anticipated – was the public humiliation of some students and embarrassment for their parents. The episode could have lasting negative psychosocial effects on the affected children.

Yet the school’s stated aim was to highlight and recognise those who met what officials believed were established competence standards at the end of primary education. However, its approach failed to confront two fundamental questions relevant to both the school’s performance and national education outcomes.

Neither the size of Ascot’s grade-six cohort nor the proportion that met PEP proficiency standards is clear. It would be important to know what responsibility, if any, principal Jackson and his teachers take for these shortcomings. Despite recent improvements, official data show that each year, about one in three students leave grade six not proficient in language arts. The figure exceeds four in 10 in mathematics.

Ronald Thwaites, a former education minister and Roman Catholic deacon involved in managing church schools, suggests that even these figures understate the reality.

“At more than one high school I observe carefully,” Mr Thwaites wrote in this newspaper on Monday, “a significant number of students enrolled are scored as proficient in language arts in the Primary Exit Profile results.

“But when they are tested on entry to Grade 7, on average they are reading at Grade 3 or 4 levels,” he reported.

These below-par readers are therefore unable to cope with secondary school subjects without persistent interventions, which teachers and schools are not equipped to provide.

Mr Thwaites’ assessment appears at odds with the expectations outlined by Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon in response to the Ascot episode.

“The secondary pathways recorded in the PEP reports are designed to inform the development of learning plans for students, so they can improve their learning journey,” she said.

Presumably, then, high school teachers must repair the deficiencies created at earlier stages.

At the secondary level, the ‘learning journey’, except in exceptional cases, should begin with students reading and comprehending at age-appropriate standards for 12- and 13-year-olds, in line with global norms.

Indeed, shortcomings such as those highlighted by Mr Thwaites contribute to UNICEF’s finding that while Jamaican children complete, on average, 11.7 years of schooling, those years translate into only 7.2 years of effective learning when benchmarked against top-performing systems.

“This reveals a learning gap of 4.5 years, which disproportionately affects children in poorer quintiles, as access to high-performing schools remains strongly correlated with socio-economic background,” UNICEF reports.

The Gleaner’s Editorial Board agrees with Dr Morris Dixon that a child’s PEP results should not be used as a cudgel for denigration or humiliation. However, “celebrating an important educational milestone” at grade six should primarily be the responsibility of parents. When schools mark the occasion, it should not take the form of elaborate ceremonies with gowns and mortarboards.

The central mission of primary schools must be to deliver students who can read, write and perform basic arithmetic at their age and grade levels. It is unfortunate that the concerns of some Ascot parents were not more firmly focused on this reality.