Granger says a form of educational apartheid developing

PRESIDENT David Granger has contended that the secondary school education system here is a rebuke to the belief in equality, inclusivity and meritocracy as he lamented that education at that level is not universal.The Administration has inherited the flaws when it came to power about five months ago. The education system was under reform but began to rapidly deteriorate about three and a half years ago. According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, in 2009, students’ pass rate counting grades 1 to 3 was 63.7 per cent; in 2010 it increased to 66.2 per cent; and in 2011, it declined slightly to 64 per cent. In 2012 it slipped to 58. 6 per cent; in 2013, it inched to 59.3 per cent; while in 2014 it increased minimally to 60.2 per cent. In the last three years, the achievement can be best described as horizontal progress, as it was below the lowest national pass rate obtained in the previous three years. In many instances, the failures have led to frustration.
“Every day, five children drop out of secondary schools. What is to become of them? Each year more than half of the students who undertake the National Grade Six Assessment fail. This means that our secondary education system is not producing the desired results. It means that half of the students who enter the secondary school system may not be qualified to be there. This performance impacts on the quality of the results at the secondary level,” the President pointed out.