Education transformation that ends the elitism still haunting the society is what Barbados needs, and abandoning the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination is key to this.
Government Senator Reverend Charles Morris, a former teacher, stressed this recently while contributing to the debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2025.
He believes Barbados will be left behind if major education reform does not take place.
“Our development will be retarded. Other countries not as advanced I am sure will overtake us and Barbados will be in a state, in the words of Norman Manley, going up the down escalator,” he said.
Morris said the education system was still one where those who were successful at what is known as the Common Entrance exam flourished.
“We have the Common Entrance exam that is not working. I am willing to bet you that come . . . June or July you’re going to see that the [news]papers are going to be littered with all these students that get 98 and 100. What about those who are left behind?” he asked.
“We need to do better than this. The time has come for this common entrance exam to go . . . we must adopt education transformation. It is the only way forward for Barbados right now.
“I believe that we need to look at education transformation. The Barbados society has to ask itself whether our present education system is working for the majority of the country at this point in time, as reflected in our day to day experiences and interactions.”
His recommendation was to “identify the deficits and objective needs in the system and make provisions to address them”.
“Secondly, we must have competency based learning . . . and it must be pitched to the different levels and intelligences of our students, meeting the children where they are so that they can best develop their strongest skill sets, build self-esteem, have the tools to make a living and have a sense of belonging in our societies, that is what we need,” Morris said.
“We must have curriculum assessment and reform at all levels, and this is going to be vital to suit not only present but future needs.”
He also said that “technology will play an integral part of the learning process if we are to adequately prepare our students and society to be productive, to be efficient, to be relevant in achieving not just economic growth, . . . but qualitative development”.
Morris added: “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel for education transformation. We can work effectively by looking at the more successful systems.”
“Analyse best practices so that we can effectively borrow from and adapt to specifically suit our needs. They can look at places like Japan. They can look at places like Finland. But we must be prepared to have the discipline that these people have.”
He also called for a reorganisation “especially at the level of the Ministry of Education”.
