KINGSTON, Jamaica-- What has happened to more than 600 pupils who had registered for the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations held last March remains a mystery.
According to statistics provided to the Jamaica Observer by the Ministry of Education and Youth (MOEY), more than 600 pupils, from both sexes, failed to participate in the exam, and it is uncertain what will happen to them, assuming that they are still in the school system.
There was no official comment from the education ministry as the Sunday Observer prepared for its deadline, but one senior officer suggested that none of the more than 600 could be placed in a high school without sitting the PEP examination. The official said that it was likely that all would have to do a resit next year, regardless of the reasons provided by their parents or guardians for their absence.
It is understood that among those who were registered to sit the examination were children who have emigrated to countries in the regions of North America, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom.
In April last year the education ministry reported that more than 32,000 students had been missing from the formal education system since March 2020 when the novel coronavirus pandemic hit.
The ministry subsequently implemented what it labelled a “Yard to Yard, Find the Child” initiative to identify, locate and re-engage students, given the pandemic's impact on the education system.
Two months ago, Education Minister Fayval Williams said that schools had almost returned or are fully back to pre-COVID-19 levels of student attendance.
The Sunday Observer also found that 26%, or 8,105 of the approximately 35,500 pupils who sat the PEP examination, were placed in the school of their first choice. The overall number included 18,452 boys and 17,653 girls.
The education ministry had said recently that 85.5% of pupils who sat the examination had been placed in schools of their choice. Each pupil can select from seven schools of choice.
The placement method of the 85.5% accounted for 30,984 pupils being placed at one of the seven school choices given to grade six PEP pupils. The ministry stated that the remaining 4,521 pupils were placed at secondary schools either in close proximity to their home addresses or manually.
"Of the 17,380 females sitting the assessment, 15,303 were placed by preference while 2,060 were placed by proximity and 90 manually. Of the 18,125 males sitting the assessment, 15,681 were placed by preference, 2,074 by proximity and 476 manually," the ministry said in the breakdown of its statistics.
A deeper look at the MOEY statistics showed that 5,432 pupils, which is 18% of candidates, were placed at their second-choice school. At the same time, only 2,246 pupils are heading to the school at the bottom of their list.
While it did not provide further insight, the ministry shared that 31,902 pupils were placed at secondary high schools, while technical high and agricultural high accounted for 3,567 and 201 placements, respectively. Fourteen pupils were placed at institutions specialising in special education.
A total of 5,789 beneficiary pupils under the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) sat the 2023 grade six PEP exams. The ministry's data showed that 89.4% of the pupils on PATH received one of their seven choices, while 8.1% were placed in proximity to their home and another 2% manually. Twenty-nine PATH students were absent from the exams.
In comparing the placements of pupils over the last three years, the ministry noted that there have been steady performance and "no significant change in the distribution of placement.
"It should be noted that even though the tests and/or components used to place students have changed over the past three years, the mechanism used to place students remains the same," the MOEY said.
The ministry explained that similar to the previously used Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), the PEP uses the total placement score for ranking and placing pupils based on a weighted formula of standardised test scores.
Speaking at the ministry's PEP results press conference last month, Williams lauded pupils for the increase in the proficient and highly proficient categories of the examination when compared to 2019.
Williams said that of the pupils who sat exams, 57% scored in the proficient and highly proficient category in mathematics when compared to 41% in 2019. In science, 64% of pupils were proficient and highly proficient in comparison to 49% in 2019, while for social studies the numbers were 63% in 2019, and 67% in 2023. Language arts saw a 55% score in 2019, while 60% of pupils scored in the categories this year.
Stating that the country's education sector is "encouraged" by the results, Williams said, "We know going forward we'll continue the plans, we'll continue the emphasis we had on literacy and numeracy. We'll continue the coaching programmes that we have, all the strategies that our teachers use in the classroom to pull out students," she said.
In the meantime, a further look at the ministry's PEP statistics showed that for the academic year 2022-2023, two criteria were used to place pupils on the Secondary Pathway Programme. They were language arts achievement and the grade six ability test percentile rank.
According to the ministry, the 22,073 pupils placed in Secondary Pathway 1 are those who have shown competence and are deemed ready to access the content at grade seven. The 11,550 pupils in Secondary Pathway 2 will need minimum support in accessing content at grade seven.
The 1,995 pupils who were placed in secondary Pathway 3 will undergo a psycho-educational assessment to determine the targeted programme of study they will receive at the secondary level, the MOEY said.
The ministry also noted that special consideration was given to the 30 special needs children who sat the 2023 PEP exams.
"The unique needs of each child are assessed by the Special Education Unit and the schools they are placed in are evaluated to ensure that they will be fairly accommodated," the ministry said. ~ Jamaica Observer ~
