No literacy crisis here — Hill

THE Education Ministry has sought to rubbish suggestions that the island is facing a literacy crisis.This follows reports that almost 60 per cent of the more than 20,000 primary school students who took the supplemental Grade Four Literacy Test last December had failed to achieve mastery.Andre Hill, the island's literacy co-ordinator, is insisting there has instead been some gains as borne out in the numbers which show that while more than 3,200 of the students who did the December supplemental exam were graded at the non-mastery level, 9,049 achieved mastery.Another 8,000 or so achieved almost-mastery in the exam which evaluates students in three categories — word recognition, reading comprehension and writing.Hill noted that in June last year, 41,000 public primary school students sat the literacy test in grade four. Of that, 69.3 per cent or 28,679 of them achieved mastery. The 12,000 students who failed were among those who did the supplemental exam and of that number, Hill said 5,915 achieved mastery."When you look at the cumulative percentage mastery for those who sat in June and December of 2011, the cumulative percentage is 81.3 per cent," he told Career & Education.He was, however, quick to point out that he is not saying anyone should be content with that percentage though the gains are nothing to be frowned upon."A hundred per cent is better than 81.3 per cent, but 81.3 per cent is something to be proud of, not something to be saddened by because improvements have been made," Hill said.Meanwhile, he noted that there are a number of reasons why some children failed to achieve mastery in the exam after a second, third and even fourth try. They include physical, mental, psychological, and environmental challenges."So the literacy specialists can meet the need of the students only to a certain level," Hill said.Students who fail the tests are, nonetheless, given support by the teacher responsible for managing literacy at the various schools and there is one in every public primary institution, he said.Hill explained that when students fail the Grade Four Literacy Test in June of each year, they are allowed to go on to grade five where they do the supplemental literacy test in December. If they fail then, they do it again in June while in grade five. If they fail a third time, they go on to grade six and do the supplemental exam in December."If [however] the child does not master the sitting of the supplemental [test] in grade six, then that child will not be allowed to do GSAT [Grade Six Achievement Test] because the policy is that in order for any child to do GSAT, they have to matriculate through the grade four literacy exam," Hill said.Such a student is instead put into the Alternative Secondary Transition Education Programme for two years to get additional support in preparation for their secondary education.Click here to view orginal article.