An education expert has warned that Barbados is facing a literacy and numeracy crisis and suggested an urgent overhaul of the primary education system to address plummeting academic performance among secondary school students.
University lecturer Dr Ian Marshall, who has more than 30 years of experience in the teaching system at every level, told Barbados TODAY that he was deeply concerned that enough was not being done to effectively address the root causes of learning deficits the island’s teenage population was experiencing.
He said scores of the nation’s children were presenting learning challenges at an early age but nothing concrete was being done to resolve those issues before they moved on to secondary school.
Marshall suggested that officials pay closer attention to improving the primary school system to prevent literacy rates from dropping even further.
His comments come in the wake of ongoing consultations the Ministry of Education is having with parents in relation to the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (BSSEE), commonly referred to as the 11-Plus exam.
Over the past several years, especially during the heightened phases of the COVID-19 pandemic when classes were online, officials, educators and social commentators expressed concern about the number of first-form students with literacy and numeracy challenges. Following the exam last year, officials announced that national mean scores slumped, with Mathematics falling to 54.62 per cent from 59.2 per cent in 2023, and English decreasing to 65.2 per cent from 69.5 per cent. Five students scored zero in maths.
In 2024, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) announced the poor performance in CXC English and Mathematics exams and dubbed the regional education system as being in a crisis. In addition, the National Task Force on Literacy Education in Barbados admitted that there was great cause for concern about the literacy rate of students.
Marshall said that during the 11-plus consultations, he hoped that stakeholders were not merely focusing on the sitting of an exam but on what could be done to ensure primary school children with learning challenges get the requisite assistance they needed before they transitioned further in their education.
“There are fundamental flaws and cracks in the system that are not addressed by the way we deliver our instructions . . . All the examination (11-plus) does is that it highlights the fact that there are cracks in the system and that we are not reaching our students in the way how we are supposed to reach them,” he said.
“I think the focus on the exam is misplaced. What we need to do is focus on getting help for the students from as early an age as possible. So, if you do your diagnostics from the time they get in [primary school], in reception, all the way up, you’ll be identifying learning deficits, challenges, learning difficulties, and you’ll be able to address those issues long before they snowball when they reach the age of 11. To my mind, that is where the emphasis should be.”
Marshall, who is also the chairman of the Barbados Union of Teachers’ Education Reform Committee, said the education system fostered a “survival of the fittest” environment and elitist structure for too long and something must be urgently done to ensure education was equitable.
He acknowledged that there would be major pushback to disrupt the status quo: “This may be controversial, but the reality is the system that we have inherited serves its purpose. In other words, it keeps the haves in power and the have-nots in subservience. Anytime you are going to get movement, the movement is going to dismantle a system from which the people in power are benefiting, and they’re not going to want that because, at the end of the day, people still want to be in the ascendancy. This elitism system is not only entrenched in schools but in the workplace; there are even pecking orders there that relate to being the school that you attended.
“Even though we have the studies, we have the research and the points of what needs to be done, there is the lack of political will to do it because it has implications for whether or not you will remain in power. It seems harsh but the truth is, if we start to dismantle the systems that we know need to be dismantled, what you will have is a levelling of the playing field. So, therefore, you will not have this great difference between the 25 per cent who are passing and doing very, very well and the [other] 75 per cent; you will have greater equity across the system and you would not get to claim the oneupmanship that is so consistent with the system we have now.”
Marshall added that he hoped the ongoing consultations were not a “PR exercise”, that parents argued that the current system “isn’t working for us”, and that the ministry commits to “give primary school principals and teachers the resources that they have been calling for time and time again” to improve the quality of education at the primary level.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
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