A decision was made to postpone the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) for next year March/April.
The announcement was made by Minister of Education Priya Manickchand during a press conference yesterday.
“I can tell you now that the exams will not be written in March/April,” Minister Manickchand said.
Whether the exams will be held later in the year, the Education Minister explained that it is too early to determine.
“[NGSA] is a placement exam. It’s not an assessment to determine whether you’re bright or not. It’s an assessment to place students. Are there other ways we can place students fairly to secondary school? We’re looking at that…”
“As soon as we make that decision, we’re going to let our students and parents know,” she said.
According to the Minister, the decision to postpone the NGSA was taken in light of the threats still posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. She reasoned that because the NGSA is a placement exam administered locally, the Education Ministry has control on when those exams can be held.
In contrast, the CSEC and CAPE exams are being administered regionally by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and this is why schools had to be reopened for those students.
“We have to phase this opening; we have to look at the impact of the opening; we have to measure all those things before we can take another big step like that,” she explained.
In the meantime, however, students will continue to be meaningfully engaged through online learning, televised learning and with the distributed of printed materials.
Yesterday, schools across the country reopened for students in Grades 10, 11 as well as sixth formers and those attending Practical Instruction Centres (PIC) and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions.
