Two weeks ago roughly 7 thousand students sat the English and science portions of the Primary School Examination. They’ll sit the math portion early next month and final results won’t be out until early June. But even before those results - the news tonight is what the markers, table leaders, and supervisors have been reading in the composition section of the exam. They’ve been reading essays for two weeks and today we found out why some of these seasoned educators are shaking their heads – and we can tell you outright that it has nothing to do with grammar or punctuation.
Keith Swift Reporting,
These teachers checking the composition section of the Primary School Examination are supposed to be looking for language and grammatical errors but what they have been finding – has left some of them shocked.
Elswith Lopez, Checking Essays
“A few of the booklets, the language in there wasn’t one of those we would appreciate.”
Keith Swift,
Explain.
Elswith Lopez,
“Obscene language we are talking about and some students wrote a lot
about sex, sexual activities, also uncalled for but I guess that’s reality.”
Edward Distan, Checking Essays
“Particularly sexual stuff have been coming out in some of the stories. So I guess that goes to show what some of our children are going through.”
Keith Swift,
When you say sexual stuff what are you talking about?
Edward Distan,
“Okay let’s say explicit stuff, very kind of graphic stuff would be written by these kids and we are saying as teachers that we don’t really want to say it is the home setting but the experience of these kids. Whether they’re having it first hand or they see it on television, we are not sure but that seems to be a very popular thing.”
Keith Swift,
You believe it is about their sexual experience?
Edward Distan,
“We are not sure if it is their sexual experiences, like first hand experience, but we’ve been seeing a lot of that, like maybe rape or having sex and it is really explicit stuff they talk about.”
Keith Swift,
As a teacher, what is your reaction?
Edward Distan,
“I am a little taken aback because we would want to think that our children at that young age, yes they will know things about sex, but the graphicness, if that is a word, or the explicitness that they are showing, really is kind of shocking.”
Elswith Lopez,
“It is shocking because I’ve been marking exams as a supervisor now and I’ve never come across anything like this until now.”
Kimberly Ramclam,
“We have noticed quite a number of the scripts are talking about the social problems the children are going through, some of them are quite violent and this is an indication that whatever societal problem we are having that it is indeed affecting our children.”
Edward Distan,
“I think we have to tighten up as a society, as teachers and parents,
we really need to work hand in hand because our children are really informed and that comes out in their writing.”
Elswith Lopez,
“Parents need to get involved with their children. They need to know and they need to talk with their children in order that their children are readily and able to explain themselves and not be afraid of helping themselves when it comes to education.”
Examinations Unit chief Yvonne Davis is concerned but not surprised.
Yvonne Davis, Head of Examinations Section
“I think it is a concern for us in education and as well as the parents. We need to start to monitor the kinds of things we do around our children, what we say around them, and what we expose them to in reference to reading material and also to things that are going on the television. So we have to be very careful these days because the children, they pick up everything that they see and when they get an opportunity to express themselves, they will write about things that they are very familiar with. So it is not really for us surprising but it is just that we need to be more careful about what we do and say to our young people or with our young people.”
But there is an upside.
Kimberly Ramclam,
“We have seen a drastic improvement in the writing, we have had some inadequate scripts before but for this year, we are seeing quite a number of adequate. So we want to commend the teachers who have seen it fit to insist that English is spoken in the classroom. It is evident in the writing, we are not seeing that much Creole scripts and Spanish scripts. So I must say that quite a number of the scripts, they have improved.”
Elswith Lopez,
“Overall the marking this year has improved but there is still room for improvement.”
Those checking the exams are primarily retired teachers or senior active teachers. The social studies and math papers will be taken on May 4th.
