GSAT parents nervous, happy
Many parents of students who are sitting the high school qualifying Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) are today both nervous and happy. Nervous because these two days will decide where their children will continue their education for the next five or seven years; and happy because it marks the end of a stressful and tiresome journey.
It’s the latter for the mother of a prep school student who asked to be identified only as Tanya. She criticised the GSAT curriculum, saying the content was too heavy and demanding for 11- and 12-year-olds.
“My child has been an ‘A’ student all her life. My child has won many, many awards for academics, so you would think that I would be the one not to… send her to extra lessons, [but] I did in grade five and in September (last year) [because] I realised that she would probably need external help, because GSAT is complex. I just finished my master’s and GSAT is more complex than my master’s, trust me!” she told the Jamaica Observer.
In addition to extra lessons every day, except Friday, Tanya says her daughter is registered on online learning platform Edufocal. Over time, she has had to give up piano, gymnastics, karate and her favourite games just to fit in all the extra classes.
“Initially, she minded dropping the activities, but I talked to her. You have to talk to your kids. I said, ‘This is going to be two days out of your life with exams that are going to determine your future, so you give up the tablet, you give up the games, you give up the TV, and when you finish those two days, I will not harass you again ’till high school,” Tanya related.
The strategy has apparently worked.
“We expect her to get her school of choice,” the mother told. “She’s very, very prepared. She’s not nervous and I’m not nervous.”
Just over 39,000 students across the island are registered to sit GSAT this year, with mathematics and social studies scheduled for day one, and language arts, communication task, and science set for day two.
Deputy Chief Education Officer Dorrett Campbell told the Observer yesterday that everything was in place for the test insofar as the distribution of the papers and the assigning of invigilators and presiding examiners. The ministry expects the proceedings to run smoothly, she said.
“We hope to have a very good day tomorrow (today) and Friday. The students are excited and we are confident that they will do very well, as usual,” said Campbell.
That excitement has eluded some parents who are more nervous than anything else.
One Miss Elliott, whose son attends a primary school in St Andrew, accuses the school of either not teaching particular components of the syllabus or doing so in delayed fashion. She said her conclusion is based on the pace at another primary school where she sent him for extra classes, albeit not as often as she would like.
“I’m worried because they’re not teaching the students and I don’t know what the ministry is doing,” she told the Observer in a previous interview.
In Spanish Town, acting vice-principal at Ensom City Primary in Spanish Town Angella Lewis told the Observer that the majority of her parents are nervous going into the exams.
“They are super nervous. They complain sometimes that they don’t know if the students are ready, that they don’t know if they are studying enough, and it’s all because they want them to go to traditional high schools. Despite us telling them that all high schools do the same curriculum, some of them think that traditional high schools are the best,” she said.
Prior to the exams, GSAT candidates choose five schools in order of preference at which they would like to be placed. Getting the first choice depends on the quality of their grades.
Still parents contend that there is much to fix with GSAT, primarily with the content.
“For example, they are learning about the solar system and different climates as far as Ghana and Japan. I’m dealing with a child who is not exposed to a lot of things. So my child, who is not exposed to anything outside of the tropics and North America, cannot relate to it and that’s the problem with GSAT” one parent to whom the Observer spoke explained.
She added that if students cannot relate to something, the only option is to have them memorise the content, which is not ideal. To that end, she said she has had to find creative ways to teach her daughter some of the concepts at home to make sure she learns, rather than memorises, the subject.
“Even with science, I have to get plastic bottles and do experiments at home. I have to be growing peas at home to show her roots. I have to carry her in the back yard to show her different types of soil. She has to be watching videos of the ear and actual dissection of the eye online,” the parent said.
As for the GSAT mock exam, which the ministry introduced this year, Tanya said it “erased all [her] child’s confidence”.
“It did not mirror what GSAT is going to be. GSAT is supposed to be 20 per cent grade four, 40 per cent grade five, and the rest, grade six curriculum. The mock exam was actually mostly grade four curriculum and then some grade five and six. Until now I have not got the official results from the ministry outlining weak areas.”
In the ministry’s defence, however, deputy chief education officer Campbell said it was never the intention to release results to parents. It was to guide the school in addressing particular deficits in anticipation of the test, she said.