Specialist: Ministry wrong to compare PEP with CSEC
AT LEAST one curriculum and assessment specialist has expressed concerns about the Ministry of Education’s approach to combine the scores of students who fell in the categories of ‘standard met’ and ‘standard nearly met’ for the recent Primary Exit Profile (PEP) mock exam.
Michael-Anthony DobsonLewis, who is also former senior lecturer in education at the University of Technology (UTech), said while he has no issues with the categories in which the students were scored, it was unacceptable for the ministry to compare its scoring method with that of a student getting grade three in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC).
Last week, the education ministry came under fire for what persons called disingenuous reporting of the results of the score in the PEP performance task mock exam, by combining the results from ‘standard met’ and ‘standard nearly met’, to report that 83 per cent of the students had scored satisfactorily.
In justifying its action, Chief Education Officer Dr Grace McLean said, “Reference can be drawn from how the CXC (Caribbean Examinations Council) scores are reported. Despite the fact that a grade three is benchmarked at 40 per cent, once a student achieves a grade three or higher, it is reported as an acceptable grade. Hence, the combination of ‘standard met’ and ‘standard nearly met’, as was reported for the grade five mock exam, is an acceptable indication level of students’ achievement of the skills of the National Standards Curriculum.”
BETTER THAN GSAT
But Dobson-Lewis said, “Assessment results must at all times be reported fairly and honestly. ‘Nearly met standard’ is not mastery and so is not an acceptable or satisfactory performance.
“It is not accurate to make the analogy with grade three at CSEC and ‘nearly met standard’. Grade three at CSEC is an acceptable performance. CSEC has three levels of mastery: grade one, grade two and grade three. Grade four at CSEC is nearly meeting the standard of passing set by CXC and so it is not an acceptable performance.”
The specialist added, “It is rather unfortunate that the minister of education grouped ‘nearly met standard’ and ‘met standard’ as acceptable by saying it is satisfactory performance. ‘Nearly met standard’ is not acceptable and so cannot be satisfactory performance.”
Dobson-Lewis pointed out, however, that barring the many issues and challenges in
executing PEP, he believes the structure of the exam is much better and will achieve greater results, when compared with the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), as it encourages a greater level of critical thinking from students.