Parents are being advised to allow their son/daughter to repeat grade six if that child received four E’s in the Grade Six National Assessment (G6NA) this year.
The advice came from Education Minister Octavia Alfred who was addressing a press conference held recently.
“I want to advise parents that if their children are still young and the results are four E’s in a row, I think the best thing is for us to send the children back to the primary school with a special program that the ministry will help to put together for them instead of moving them forward at 11 years with 4 E’s,” she advised. “Because sometimes we are busy to move them…”
Alfred said the first option is always up to the parents, “but the advice is better they repeat grade six and beef-up their performance than moving on with 4 E’s.”
This year, 872 students, (404 girls and 467 boys), wrote the exams across 63 centers around the island.
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You are nothing but an as.hole. You are just full of hate for this Skerrit Government with all your diatribe and garbage you keep spewing on DNO. I am just proud of the fact that most Dominicans pay you no mind and do not feed into your refuse. You are full of empty talk and have not made one contribution to the development of this country. If you are so smart, why are you always on the outside running your attacks on Government Ministers which have done you no good? Only the UWP cabal which is in the minority giving you all these thumbs up. Once again, nobody knows you, nobody knows your name, nobody knows what you do and, nobody cares about you. You do not impress me and, I do not give a hoot about how you feel about me. I am not fazed by your garbage talk. I am surviving and doing well. I only have God to thank. I did it all on my own without your help or anyone’s help and, I am very proud of that. I am a very resourceful and intelligent person. Keep all your garbage to yourself.
To repeat students at such a late stage in primary school may not be the best strategy.
Close monitoring of students in the earlier grades to detect those who are lagging behind and put remedial strategies in place to assist these late boomers would be more helpful.
We still rely on chalk and talk too much in the classroom. Lessons are too boring. This turns off a lot of our children.
A boring lesson is like a blacksmith hammering on a cold iron. The lessons must be interesting and exciting to: 1. Hold the attention of the students
2. Light a fire in them for information.
Thorough preparation is key in lesson planning. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Teachers should be monitored and assessed to ensure that their lesson plans are well done and properly executed.
And that is the news. Way papa.
What rubbish I hearing there nuh…how can it be left to the parents to decide that … We really going backwards in this country…
The home is the most important institution in any community. That is an irrefutable fact. What we want our children to be should be modelled in the home by the parents. Children learn what they see and hear.
Parents should encourage their children to read everyday. This helps. Most of our scholars are usually voracious readers. What polish does to the shoe reading does to the mind.
Having said that, the school should put programs, measures and specific strategies in place to get students to read more. It must not be left to the parents or homes alone to do this.
Parents actually have that option? I thought it was automatic through USE that the kids would go on to secondary school
Universal Secondary Education is more of an avenue, an option, than a must. It’s not like an ultimatum, where there is basically only one choice.
Had more care been taken to identity the special needs of these pupils at an earlier age, it may have been found that their abilities relate to subjects that are not covered in the archaic Grade Six National Assessment.
Furthermore, if they do repeat, it would be a waste trying to force feed them the same subjects. Education should not be a one size fits all senario.
Firstly, in my time of going to school, it wasnt the parent’s choice if a child repeated or not. If your child wasnt that smart or wasnt that attentive in school the teachers and school admin would decide whether you were repeating a grade and your parent would be informed. Maybe a discussion would be had between the parent and the school but it is not the parent’s choice to determine whether a child repeated a grade or form. its the school. Why? because what parent wants their child to repeat and not advance? Pampalam if is so all you have the school system them note you are failing. and you yourself should repeat the school.
That’s how it was when i went to school. Parents had no say, but things have changed. Presently, a parent can go to his/her child’s school, and in SOME instances ask for his/her child to repeat a class. And YES, it’s right here in Dominica people!
Don’t know for the private schools though. Could be different!
Under your guardianship, Minister Alfred, you have done absolutely nothing of significance to improve the standard of education in Dominica. It is not because you don’t want to, but you lack the intellectual capacity for this role that has been wrongfully entrusted to you.
If you have any self respect, if you truly care about the future of our most precious resource ( our children), you, Mrs. Alfred, will tender your resignation with immediacy.