developing a seamless education system uncovering the barriers (booklet)

Developing a Seamless Education System:Uncovering barriers to education in the school system

Sharon Douglass Mangroo

In part fulfillment of the University of Sheffield Ed.D. programme

May 31, 2009

Abstract

The current national plan for development describes a vision in which equal

opportunities are available to every citizen to allow achievement of potential

and enjoyment of a high quality of life. The development of a seamless, self

renewing, high-quality education system is one of the development

strategies cited. The seamlessness results from the absence of barriers to

movement across and between the different sub-sectors and the various

levels and types of education and training. The Government is soon to sign

a loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank to fund a

project within the Ministry of Education to support the development of this

seamless system. Public dissatisfaction with a deteriorating social

environment and low student achievement, measured in national and

regional assessments, suggest that educational opportunities are not

equally available to all.

This paper examines the barriers to education that exist in the policies and

practices implemented in the schools. The literature was reviewed with a

focus on pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, and comparisons made

with reports of empirical studies that have been recently undertaken as part

of project preparation. Several barriers to education were uncovered in the

school processes with language and culture a common thread among

them.


Developing a Seamless Education System: Uncovering barriers to

education in the school system

INTRODUCTION

The Inter-American Development Bank loan for the project: “Support for a

Seamless Education System” has been approved by the Board and the

agreement between the Bank and the Government of the Republic of

Trinidad and Tobago is soon to be signed with a projected start date of July

1st 2009.

In spite of considerable achievements in national development through

education, there is public dissatisfaction with the social progress.

Newspapers attest to a deteriorating social situation with daily reports of

crime that includes gang related violence and murders, some of which

involve school-aged youth.

Conflict approaches to education refer to systematic barriers to upward

social mobility. An understanding of the systemic factors that deny citizens

equal access to the education necessary to enhance their ‘human

capabilities and functionings’ (Sen in Levitt, 2005) is vital to the success of

the Seamless project and to the establishment of a Seamless Education

System, since failure to address underlying causes of barriers may lead to

superficial solutions which while generating very visible activity, will not

change the status quo. This understanding should be shared by all the

major stakeholders in the project. Lauder et al (2006) warn that it is


essential to democracy that complex education ideas are presented clearly

to students, citizens and policymakers.

EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

A declaration on The Right to Development as an inalienable human right

adopted by the United Nations in 1986 highlights the concept of

development as primarily related to the welfare of people. The declaration

speaks to the right and duty of States to formulate appropriate policies that

bring about the constant improvement in the well being of each individual

and of the entire population in part through assurance of equal opportunity

in access to “basic resources, education, health services, food, housing

employment and the fair distribution of income” (Universal Declaration of

Human Rights in Levitt 2005, p. 328).

Education is accepted by many as a major vehicle for social justice and

national efficiency offering a promise of equality of opportunity that leads to

social mobility transcending barriers such as social background, race,

ethnicity, class or gender. Educational attainment is suggested by Levitt

(2005) to be a significant determinant of income so that an increase in

schooling is associated with a decrease in income inequality. Education

therefore shapes individual life chances. On a national level, with the

increasing effect of globalization, education is expected to play a key role in

the provision of a competent highly skilled workforce capable of competing

in the knowledge economy.

Education has always been a major strategy for development in Trinidad

and Tobago. The first Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams on the eve of this

country’s independence exhorted schoolchildren to remember that “the


future of Trinidad and Tobago is in your schoolbags”. Successive

development plans have ascribed a major role to education and training.

The current national plan for development describes a vision in which equal

opportunities are available to every citizen to allow achievement of his/her

highest potential and enjoyment of a high quality of life. The development

of a “seamless, self-renewing, high-quality education system” is one of the

development strategies cited. The seamlessness results from the absence

of barriers to movement across and between the different sub-sectors and

the various levels and types of education and training.

This seamless education system is expected to impact on individuals as

well as on the nation. At the level of the individual citizen equal access to

learning opportunities will contribute to self-actualisation and a high quality

of life. At the national level it is expected to provide a highly skilled, talented

and knowledgeable workforce capable of stimulating innovation driven

growth and development consistent with a modern, progressive,

technologically advancing nation. It is expected that at least sixty per cent

of the students exiting secondary school will progress to some form of

tertiary education.

The contribution of education to development is a topic that attracts much

debate. The issues include the purposes served by development and the

beneficiaries of education. Levitt (2005) observes that development is not

ultimately about physical capital or the availability of foreign exchange but

about “social progress rooted in the cultural sphere”. As a former colony

Trinidad and Tobago has long felt the influences of globalization in an

education system that primarily served the purposes of the colonizer. This,

Levitt argues, characteristic of a plantation economy, has left a legacy of


contempt for the working people who sustain the economy evidenced

among other things by poor schooling. The current intensification of the

globalization thrust presents the risk of re-colonization through the

influence of Multinational and Transnational agencies that directly or

indirectly impinge on the education system through their effect on its inputs,

processes and outputs.

Consensus approaches to education view it in terms of a meritocracy

where effort coupled with intelligence results in achievement (Young 1961,

in Lauder et al, 2005) which is rewarded by occupational success. The

State is assumed to be efficient and fair in its dispensation so that all

interests are equitably served. Conflict approaches to education challenge

the assumption of equity and fairness and argue that systematic

differences exist in the chances of students of different social backgrounds

to access high status jobs. Bourdieu (in Lauder et al, 2006) suggests that

school processes related to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment

privilege the children of the professional middle classes. Trinidad and

Tobago boasts of a meritocratic system of selection for secondary

schooling, yet poor school performance is often associated with certain

socioeconomic and ethnic sectors of the population. This suggests that

equitable access to education opportunities and the resulting privileges

granted by society to the educated may not be a reality. As Trinidad and

Tobago emerges from a colonial society with its inherent system of

privileges based on social background and ethnicity it is important to

examine the questions of whether the current system of education

reproduces the inequalities present in society and the extent to which it can

be a source of progressive change.


STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Primary level

In Trinidad and Tobago students generally begin their education at the age

of five though some attend pre-schools from the age of three. At eleven

years, in Standard five, they take the Secondary Entrance Assessment

Examination based on the national curriculum to determine placement at

secondary school. Other standardized national tests are administered at

Standards one and three in English and Mathematics. In 2008 national

tests were also introduced in Social Studies and Science at Standards two

and four. The results of all of these measures of achievement have

consistently demonstrated an unsatisfactory performance at national level.

This is exemplified by the National Test results for 2008. Four performance

levels were used to describe expected achievement as follows:

Level DescriptorLevel 4 Exceeds standards

Level 3 Meets standards

Level 2 Nearly meets standards

Level 1 Below standards

Table 1 National Test Performance levels

The results of the tests indicate unsatisfactory performance in all four

subjects in all classes for more than half of the cohort with the exception of

Mathematics in Standard three.

Student Mathematics Language Science Social


performance Arts StudiesStandard

One

58 65

Standard two 61 52

Standard

three

37 60

Standard four 64 58

Table 2 Percentage of students performing below satisfactory level in 2008

Eleven year-olds take the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination

(SEA) in standard five. Parents indicate choices for a secondary school but

actual placement is by merit determined by performance in the

examination. Those who score below 30% of the total on the examination

are considered at risk and placed in special classes at the secondary

schools selected by the Ministry since they are not likely to have qualified

for any of their choices. In 2008 13.3% of the seventeen thousand eight

hundred and fifty-five (17,855) students who wrote the exam fell into this

category. Sixteen hundred and forty (1640) of these were boys and seven

hundred and forty-two (742) girls.

International comparison supports the cause for concern. In 2006 Trinidad

and Tobago participated in the International Reading Literacy Study

(PIRLS) for the first time entering students in the fifth year of formal

schooling (about ten years old). The results showed a ranking significantly

lower than the PIRLS scale average and among the forty countries, higher

only than Iran, Indonesia, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco and South Africa,


countries with large populations for whom English is not a first language.

The average achievement of girls was significantly higher than that of boys.

Secondary level

At the secondary level the majority of students exit the formal system at the

end of form five when they take the Caribbean Secondary Examination (C-

SEC) certified by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC). Since a grade

one, two or three at General Proficiency level in Mathematics and English

language are pre-requisites for the next level of education, performance in

these two subjects may be taken as indications of general achievement.

The results for the CXC C-SEC examination over the last three years show

that just about half of all candidates obtained a grade three or higher in

English language.

Year 2006 2007 2008% with Grades

I-III

55.81 52.54 49.56

In the

2008 examination of the 20,000 candidates registered for the General

Proficiency Mathematics examination only 47 per cent achieved Grades

one to three. This is consistent with the trend shown from 2000 to 2004

when the percentages ranged from 46.0 to 51.1.

More Low Achieving Boys


Table 3 Performance in CXC C-SEC General English Language

Through the primary and secondary levels of the school system the results

of the various assessments of student performance indicate that

approximately half of the school population is performing at a generally

unsatisfactory level and at least thirteen per cent considered at risk in key

subject areas that contribute to individual and national development. In all

cases, with the exception of Mathematics at C-SEC level, girls outperform

boys and the number of low or underachieving boys is significantly higher

than the same category of girls. This together with the alarming revelation

by the Minister of Health that thirty per cent of children in the 10-19 year

age group have been diagnosed as depressed presents a significant

problem of national dimension to development and provides support to the

inference that systematic barriers to education exist for a large segment of

the school-aged population.

In the past quantity issues were a major preoccupation as school places

were insufficient to meet the demand. With the construction of new schools

however, attention is now being turned to the quality of education that will

enable more than physical access to the school building. Tinker et al (in

George, 2007) suggest that while socio-economic disadvantage is still a

major source of underachievement, the interaction of school factors such

as teacher-student relationships, classroom interaction, curriculum content

and assessment methods are important contributors. This leads to an

examination of the school processes of pedagogy, curriculum and

assessment that may block student performance.


Policies and School Processes as a Barrier to Education: Pedagogy

Pedagogy involves the processes of teaching and learning through which

the students access and engage the curriculum. Robin Alexander defines

pedagogy as not only the act of teaching but the underlying “purposes,

values, ideas, assumptions, theories and beliefs which inform, shape and

seek to justify it”. (Lauder et al. 2005. P. 724) Pedagogy then depends on

the teacher’s competence and classroom practice as well as the very

nature of the teacher himself or herself. Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain (2006)

have found that teachers have powerful effects on student achievement in

reading and Mathematics.

Dewey recommends a pedagogy that allows the active involvement of

pupils in their learning. To facilitate this they must be presented with

authentic and relevant problems together with the information necessary to

solve the problem and the means to test the solution. This approach

contradicts the version of teaching that is primarily transmission of

information and often characterized by rote learning. While used in many

classrooms, a transmissive approach may effectively exclude some

students from the curriculum; boys for example, are believed by many

educators to have a unique learning style that is different from girls and is

more activity and real-life oriented (George, 2009). McKinney and Chappell

(2009) note that some students experience success in mathematics with

traditional teaching methods but many are excluded when the predominant

instructional methodology is chalk-and-talk and individual seatwork. They

recommend alternative strategies such as opportunities for discovery and

promotion of student discourse.


Since in any classroom students will normally have diverse learning needs

and styles the teacher must not only believe that every child is capable of

learning but must translate that belief through the use of a variety of

teaching and assessment strategies that cater to individual modes of

learning to ensure that no pupil is excluded.

Undifferentiated instructionThe official policy as expressed in local curriculum documents and

resources for primary and secondary levels encourage transactional and

transformation approaches to pedagogy but a recent study of teaching

practices conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Education supports the

observations and experiences of Ministry staff that universal primary and

secondary education tends to be delivered in the same way for all students

in a class. Delivery is mainly transmissive with an emphasis on the verbal

linguistic approach. Knowledge handed down from the teacher is passively

received by students working independently and learning remains at the

recall or comprehension levels. Since students are not actively engaged in

the thinking process, critical thinking and problem solving skills are not well

developed and rote memorization is the predominant result. Assessments

too are generally uniformly administered as written tests to the

disadvantage of those students who may have other strengths but weak

written ability (Northey et al., 2007).

The national assessment results described earlier attest that such an

approach clearly meets the needs of only some students.


Teachers’ perceptions and Teacher-student relationshipsStudies have found that students’ academic outcomes are influenced by

teachers’ perceptions and a correlation has been found to exist between

how teachers view children and how the children view themselves. Thus

teachers’ beliefs about their students influence the quality of education that

schoolchildren receive and their opportunity for learning (Sirota and Bailey

2009). Superville (in George, 2009) found that local male students felt that

very little was expected of them by teachers and that this low expectation

worked as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The attention given by teachers to boys

in classroom interactions has also been found to be more negative than for

girls and this is advanced as a factor that impacts negatively on boys’

academic performance. Younger, Warrington, and Williams (1999 in

George, 2009) note that teachers perceive girls as having more positive

attitudes and skills for learning than boys. The feminization of teaching is

also believed by many to negatively affect boys’ academic performance

though this is debated in the literature.

The Miske Witt Report (2008) indicates that most teachers surveyed voiced

the belief that all children can learn and that they have high expectations

for all students but the discussions at meetings of teachers reveal low

expectations and sometimes frustration in dealing with those who have

learning needs that are not met by their standard practice.

Professional Development and competenceMorais and Neves (2001) assure that through appropriate professional

development pedagogic practices can be changed to improve school

results, particularly with children of disadvantaged social groups. They


declare that pedagogic change may also result from joint work between

researchers and teachers.

In their final report to the Ministry of Education on Inclusive Education,

Miske Witt and Associates (2008) observed that teachers’ suspicion that

more students had disabilities than were actually diagnosed was an

indication of students’ struggle to learn and teachers’ struggle to teach

them. They noted that while most teachers are not grounded in research on

best practices or action research in their teaching, they want and need to

be provided with the knowledge and skills to address learning, behavioural,

and cognitive needs in the general education classroom. Ninety per cent of

the teachers surveyed reported that they have no qualifications in special

needs education and 45% could only understand ‘somewhat’ what is

necessary to teach in an inclusive classroom. The Teaching Service

Employee Survey conducted in 2007 supports this as 58% of the teachers

who responded felt that they received insufficient information on training

and professional development opportunities.


WorkloadThe increase, expansion and intensification of work brought about by policy

and curriculum changes may also have a negative impact on pedagogy. In

the USA Valli (2007) found that where such changes occurred in response

to a NCLB policy directive on differentiated instruction, teachers felt that

there was insufficient time available for reflective practice. The response

was increasing importance of institutional roles in shaping and subsuming

their other roles as teachers. Valli further cautions that under those

conditions, even where professional development was available, instruction

not only did not improve but may have declined in quality. In Trinidad and

Tobago with the many changes that have taken place through reforms at

both primary and secondary levels within the last ten years, over half the

teachers surveyed in 2007 have complained that the work that they do is

beyond their job descriptions, that they do not have time to carry out their

work and that there are insufficient resources to do so. One third of them

also feel that the stress of the job is affecting their job performance.

Pedagogical barriers summarised

While official policy favours transformational and transactional approaches,

the processes of teaching and learning practiced in local classrooms are

predominantly transmissive and teacher-centered and do not generally

meet the diverse learning needs of all students. Teacher expectations and

their relationships with students may be having a negative impact on the

academic performance of those who are low achieving. Many teachers do

not have the skills and competence needed to differentiate curriculum and

instruction to meet the learning needs of diverse students but in-service

professional development opportunities to address this are limited.


Policies and School Processes as a Barrier to Education: Curriculum

Dillon (2009) suggests that educators are concerned with answers to two

basic questions about curriculum: What are the things that comprise it and

what do we do about these things. Official, though not exhaustive answers

to the first question are provided in Ministry of Education policy documents.

These are translated into classroom practice through a series of

interpretations by education personnel at various levels. Emphasis in this

section is on the second question in relation to the existing official

curriculum.


Curriculum flexibilityTo address the learning needs of all students in a diverse classroom, the

curriculum should be flexible to provide meaningful access and opportunity

for engagement to all without stigmatization or resorting to isolation for a

few. As the assessment results show there are many students in many

classrooms that have been excluded in some way from the curriculum.

They include those who are culturally or linguistically diverse, low

achievers, those whose learning styles do not match the prevailing

pedagogy, as well as those identified with disabilities and a number who

may understand some but not enough of the subject matter to achieve

competence. Orkwis and McLane (1998) advise that access to the

curriculum starts with a student’s ability to interact with it through learning

materials and they have identified the ways in which these materials bar full

curriculum access and engagement. Barriers to access may be physical,

sensory or cognitive which prevent or reduce students’ chance of achieving

competence. Learning materials used to teach curriculum content should

therefore have flexible designs to meet the diverse learning needs of

students with different abilities, cultural and linguistic backgrounds and

learning styles. The instructional and assessment methodologies must also

provide for multiple means of representation and expression matched to

the learning needs of each student.

Curriculum materials


Representation of curriculum content by any single means may provide

obstacles to subject material for some students. Printed text is inaccessible

for many students as for example those with low vision, blindness or

learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Audio used alone creates barriers for

students with hearing difficulties, those who may not be comfortable with

the language of instruction, may have auditory processing problems or may

not hear well in a noisy environment. Images or graphics only, exclude

blind students, those with low vision or those whose experience does not

provide the necessary clues to able to interpret them. Complex concepts

and lack of background or pre-requisite knowledge about specific topics

may make some content be inaccessible.

In expressing themselves, pen or pencil and paper exercises present

barriers to students who have difficulty forming letters, spelling or writing

legibly. Many are unable to make effective oral presentations and drawing

or Illustrating is difficult for some students.

The Ministry of Education provides textbooks in a range of subject areas to

schools based on principals’ choices from a list of approved books. Once

the choice is made the single title is provided for each class for each

subject. Some additional resources have been provided to schools, mainly

for Reading. Northey (2007) noted that the predominant curriculum material

used in classrooms is the textbook alone. Miske Witt (2008) reported that in

the classrooms visited by the team audiovisual materials were rarely used

and available instructional and teaching aides were often locked away in a

storage room or the principal’s office. Specialized learning and teaching

materials to accommodate the visually and hearing impaired were not

usually available. In addition even where instructional resources were


accessible to teachers there was very limited competence in their

appropriate use.

The performance of students in English at all levels of national and regional

assessments shows that the text book as the main vehicle of subject

content is not effective for as many as half of all students. Since reading

comprehension skills are required to access texts, those students who are

without them will also be excluded from access to subject matter in all

content areas leading to generally low achievement.

Access to subjectsThe range of subjects offered in primary and secondary schools is

prescribed by the Ministry of Education. Limited subject options are

available at lower secondary school where there is a core curriculum but

Mathematics and English Language are the only mandatory subjects at

forms four and five. Due to limited staff and laboratory facilities, students

opting for certain subject areas such as the sciences and Information

Technology must usually meet criteria set by the school. In some schools

students are streamed by perceived ability and their choice of subjects

limited. In others access to subjects is competitive. This practice effectively

excludes lower performing students from certain subjects associated with

managerial and professional jobs. Since girls have been outperforming

boys at all levels of the school system, boys are at a disadvantage in

competing with them for subject spaces. This is illustrated over the period

2003-2007 where significantly more girls than boys entered the CXC C-

SEC examination in all subjects beside Physics (George, 2009).


The systematic exclusion of some students from science subjects and the

resulting gap between the achievement of boys and girls has implications

for achievement of the goals related to the national strategy for

development.

Barriers to curriculum engagementTo facilitate engagement in the curriculum each child must be provided with

the support necessary to achieve the desired outcomes. The teacher must

be familiar with the learning needs of each student and monitor individual

progress. Interesting and intellectually challenging learning experiences

that take account of diverse interests, with appropriate scaffolding, must

include a balance of novelty and familiarity and a variety of formats and

content.

Miske Witt (2008) found that the degree of student support given by

teachers in local classrooms was inadequate. Pre-assessment of pupils is

not the norm and apart from test results, teachers do not systematically

record individual student progress. There is a general absence of

documented instructional planning and very limited accommodations to the

scope and sequence of the curriculum are made for students who may not

be fully engaged. Teachers focus on large group instruction with little

individual attention often limited to those students in the front rows rather

than the slower students who normally sit at the back. Where group work

was practiced, grouping patterns were ad hoc rather than planned to

improve performance. The absence of qualified support staff to assist

students with special learning needs leads to disengagement with the

curriculum and often results in disaffection with learning.


Northey (2007) reported on a shortage of instructional resources in the

classroom but also on the inability of some teachers to use those that were

available. Along with Miske Witt they also noted teachers’ opinions that

crowded classrooms and limited physical space militated against the use of

a variety of teaching strategies. The high rate of teacher absenteeism or

vacancies in some schools also reduces the chances of student access to

and engagement in the curriculum.

The curriculum environmentStudents learn best in a secure environment but many students do not feel

safe in schools. The presence of gangs and gang-related behaviours in

some schools are a serious deterrent to curriculum engagement for

members as well as non-members of the gangs. Several students have

been victims of gang-related criminal activities with one murder taking

place in a school. In the 2006 Programme for International Reading

Literacy Study Trinidad and Tobago was among four countries with less

than 30% of students with high student safety in school index.

The physical design of some older schools with classrooms separated only

by chalkboards or other thin partitions provides a noisy and distracting

environment that is not well tolerated by some learners.

Curriculum barriers summarisedSeveral Curriculum factors therefore present barriers to access and

engagement of students in learning, most of these revolving around the

teacher. Textbooks are the predominant source of subject matter

knowledge and teachers are not versed in the effective use of alternative

instructional resources. There is limited evidence of systematic instructional


planning or monitoring individual student progress. Teachers provide

limited individual attention to some students and do not make methodical

accommodations to the curriculum for diverse learning needs. Assistive

technologies and support personnel for special learning needs are not

normally available. The learning environment in some schools does not

encourage learning and absent teachers reduce student interaction with the

curriculum.

Policies and School Processes as a Barrier to Education: Assessment

In Trinidad and Tobago two high-stakes examinations constitute the major

focal points for assessment issues. A high-stakes examination is one for

which the consequences directly affect the individuals who take it and have

a significant impact on their lives. The Secondary Entrance Assessment

examination determines placement of students in secondary schools based

on achievement levels, while the Caribbean Examination Council

Secondary Education Certificate taken at the end of five years of secondary

schooling influences access to the next level of education and to the level

of employment. In recent times the national tests administered at standards

one through four, meant to measure the performance of the system, have

begun to be treated as high-stakes by some teachers and parents.

Unintended consequences of high-stakes examinations are subject to

much discussion in the literature. While the ultimate goal of such

examinations is usually to promote student learning and achievement, the

opposite may occur. Some of the concerns expressed include the

narrowing of the curriculum as increased test preparation may even lead to


teaching to the tests excluding content and skills that are not tested.

Broadfoot and Pollard (in Lauder, 2006) warn that failure experienced at an

early age may discourage learning, leading to a pattern that is likely to be

repeated at secondary and even tertiary levels. Christenson et al (2007)

further admonish that already struggling students are most likely to be so

affected and point to a positive relationship between high-stakes testing

and the student drop-out rate. Broadfoot and Pollard quote Madaus (1994)

to caution chillingly that far from being neutral, tests and assessments “act

to transform, mould and even to create, what they supposedly measure”

(Lauder, 2006. p.765).

The effect of national tests in the classroomNorthey et al (2007) report negative effects of the high-stakes tests at

primary level. These include the ‘washback’ effect on the curriculum as

teachers emphasize the areas regularly tested to the neglect of non-tested

content. Unofficial practice tests featuring low level items that appear in

national newspapers are widely used by both parents and teachers and

reinforce this emphasis. The national tests have spawned a ‘private

lessons’ industry that provides extra classes, often drill type, on afternoons

and weekends to those who can afford them. Privately published practice

tests are also included on the booklist of some schools, to be purchased by

parents. The significance of the consequences of the SEA examination has

the effect of making it, rather than the official curriculum, the object of

attention.

Though teachers articulate their belief that continuous assessment can

enhance student achievement, it is not widely implemented. Teachers

express fears that this practice requires a different type of teaching than


that demanded by ‘the exam’. Classroom assessments mirror the national

ones with a focus on evaluation of lower level thinking, mainly through

objective type questions. Feedback to students when given is usually in the

form of grades with little informational comment, though specific tests may

be reviewed by the teacher with the class (not individuals). Testing is

approached more as a source of accountability, they observe, than as a

tool for improving student learning. Delayed feedback to teachers from the

national tests- the 2008 results of tests taken in June 2007 were released

in May 2009- reduces the potential for diagnostic application of the results.

Even so, Northey found assessment literacy among teachers to be low so

that few teachers were able to appropriately interpret the results to assist in

instructional decision making. Both Northey and Miske Witt noted the

absence of diagnostic testing as a tool for instructional decision making.

Several writers (Christenson et al 2007, Decker and Bolt, 2008) have noted

that the results from large scale assessments cannot be substituted for

diagnostic assessments. They are best used to indicate where further

information is needed for specific decision making about particular

students.

At the secondary level school based assessments form part of the CXC

examination and testing for the examination is distributed over the five

terms in which there is direct preparation. Some schools begin preparation

for this exit exam as early as the third year of school however, neglecting

aspects of the lower secondary curriculum that are not examined in the fifth

year. This includes important content such as education for citizenship and

personal development that contribute to maturity and are necessary for


achievement of the national goals for development. Extra lessons for those

who can afford it are also commonplace at this level.

Social promotionSince 2001 the advent of universal secondary education has meant places

for all students at secondary school. The unintended consequence of this

decision is the transition of many students who are not yet ready for

secondary level. While retention of such students has not proven effective,

this social promotion has resulted in frustration for students who cannot do

the work, as well as for the teachers who are ill equipped to teach them and

sends a message to some that they can succeed without working while

their parents get a false sense of their progress (Christenson et al 2007).

Parents speak of their children ‘passing’ the SEA examination by virtue of

being placed in a secondary school while in fact the child may have

achieved a low score that indicates a failure to meet the standards.

Second chancesStudents who are unsuccessful in the exit examinations may attend publicly

provided evening classes or repeat the course at private schools. However

those students who do not succeed are often employed in jobs that

demand long or irregular hours and so have difficulty accessing classes.

Barriers created by assessment summarizedThe negative, unintended consequences of the high-stakes tests that

dominate assessment in the education system produce major barriers to

education for many students. While physical access to schooling is

assured, the impact of the tests affects the nature of instruction, the

students’ self perception as a success or failure as well as his/her ability to


utilize the educational opportunities offered. Provision of additional aides to

learning such as extra lessons, texts and practice tests places those who

can afford them at an advantage.

Language and Culture as Barriers to Education

Language is both rooted in the culture of Trinidad and Tobago and an

aspect of it. The language of the coloniser with its implication of supremacy

is part of the legacy of our colonial past and a reality of our place in the

global economy. Levitt (2005, p.74) laments that “there is a dysfunctional

disjuncture between the energy, creativity, spiritual values and culture of

the ‘Caribbean peasantry’ and the plantation legacy which permeates

formal economic and governmental institutions.”Shepherd (2000) deplores

the continued negative representation of black Caribbean people as ‘other’

arguing that the mentalities and ideologies of past enslavers are

perpetuated today by those with power and authority even through the

medium of texts used in schools. Ramchand, Mc Donald and Small in

separate papers (Hall and Benn ed. 2000) bewail the neglect of local

culture and recolonisation through the medium of imported cultural

products.

Joanne Kilgour Dowdy (2002) recounting the conflict experienced growing

up in Trinidad with two languages: the English language of the ruling class

and the Creole, of the home and of the heart, describes how “my brain

began to feel as if it were well oiled and moving along without hiccups”

when freed her to use the Creole to express herself.


Linguists have established that Creole is a language and not merely

‘broken English’ with the implication of inferiority. Some students are fluent

in both languages and able to use each appropriately. Some, however, are

unable to function effectively in a medium in which instruction, texts and

tests are in ‘Standard English’ while the language of the home, in which

they create, analyse and solve problems, is Creole. Dr. Ian Robertson at

his inaugural professorial lecture, noting that the first language provides the

best measure of mental maturity, observed that assessment of students at

all levels is on the basis of their control of one language while they operate

in an environment with multiple languages. Recognising the power that

achievement in the CXC examinations has to determine social mobility, he

urged educators to examine the roles played by each language,

considering the areas to which each has the most potential to contribute.

“Must education be in English?” he asked.

Conclusion

Barriers to education exist in the school system through the pedagogy,

curriculum and assessment practices that largely ignore the diverse

learning needs of students. The nonexistence of overt standards for

teacher development and for teaching has resulted in a dominant

pedagogy that caters for a few and excludes many students. Reliance on

the textbook and lack of universally designed curriculum materials favours

those with reading and comprehension competence. High-stake

assessments have a negative backwash effect on the curriculum and

further disadvantage some, while the results provide limited diagnostic


feedback because of delays and teachers’ inability to interpret them.

Response to these barriers privileges those who can afford additional

lessons or instructional and test preparation materials. Student learning is

determined primarily through written tests. Perhaps, however, the greatest

barrier to education lies in the issues that surround language as it is used in

the home, the school and in assessment. Policies that acknowledge the

language issues faced by students and teachers and provide for adequate

teacher preparation to deal with them are absent. There is the possibility

that the current assessments test linguistic ability more than the skills

expected to be learned. If education is the vehicle for development, then

policies must be enacted to ensure that education reaches all students as it

is meant to.


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