Impractical pinch
Wilting under pandemic pressure, hundreds of students dodge CSEC exams
Published:Sunday | November 14, 2021 | 12:10 AMTameka Gordon - Senior Staff Reporter
Students preparing for practical subjects in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams have been struggling to master the content covered in virtual classrooms, with the results most stark in electrical technology, where only 20 of the 1,725 candidates who sat the exam in July attained a grade one. Nearly 500 students did not even bother to turn up.
A grade two was awarded to 587 of those who sat the exams, while another 759 attained a grade three in the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)-administered regional tests, for which grades one to three are passes.
Two hundred and twenty-three students received a grade four in electrical technology, while 128 got grade five.
The situation unfolded as virtual classes replaced hands-on lessons in electrical technology and several other practical subjects at the CSEC level, as face-to-face classes were suspended for more than a year because of the pandemic, placing the students at a significant disadvantage as many lacked the resources to engage with the practical requirements of their programmes.
“You just cannot teach some things online,” Vere Technical High School Principal Antoinette Banton-Ellis told The Sunday Gleaner. “It was difficult to teach these practical subjects because of COVID-19.”
Her point was supported by industrial technology teacher Keith Codner and student Tavar Ingram.
DIFFICULT FOR STUDENT
“It was very difficult for me because I had to find a woodwork shop in my community to do my practical, and sometimes they didn’t have any material,” Ingram said.
Data provided by the Overseas Examination Commission showed that, for technical drawing, the majority of students (1,125) came away with a grade three – the lowest level of passes – with 365 candidates attaining mastery (grade one) and 938 passing at grade two.
Of the 976 students who sat mechanical technology, only 42 students got a grade one. Another 281 passed with grade two, while 420 got a grade three. Some 194 students received a grade four and 38 got a grade five.
For building technology, of the 1,443 students, only 192 received a grade one. There were 573 receiving a grade two and 484 students passed with a grade three.
The situation was compounded by the fact that hundreds of students did not even bother to turn up for their exams.
For example, 400 of a total 4,939 candidates failed to show up for food and nutrition.
A total of 989 of the 4,035 students registered to sit technical drawing were missing on exam day. Some 312 did not turn up for mechanical technology and 432 missed building technology.
Of the 2,206 students registered for electrical technology, 481 failed to show for the exam.
Clothing, textile and fashion had 131 students failing to show, while family resource management had 292 absentees.
The CXC reported an overall increase in absenteeism among candidates for this year’s sitting of both the CSEC and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) exams, resulting in the smallest cohort in the last four years.
“It is the first we have had so many students being absent for exams. This is not the norm for us,” noted Vere’s Banton-Ellis. “In the past, we may have had one or two students missing, but many did not turn up, even though they did their school-based assessments (SBAs).”
The principal told The Sunday Gleaner that, this July, the school also saw its highest rate of absenteeism since 2017, with 185 of the 1,925 students entered for external exams not turning up.
Overall, the school’s pass rate dropped from 78 per cent in 2020 to 51 per cent this year.
Banton-Ellis said that the absenteeism could have been widely caused by a lack of confidence on the part of students who felt they were unprepared for the exams.
“When teachers called to find out why they were absent, ‘Miss, I don’t think I can manage that exam’ was the response from many of them,” she said.
Reports of hardship by students to the CXC this year also surged by 78 per cent at the CAPE level and 638 per cent for CSEC.
The CXC is not considering a further modification to its requirements for the next staging of the exams. Registrar Dr Wayne Wesley told our newsroom that the examination body will be sticking to “the considerations” extended for this year’s sitting of examinations.
“We communicated last year how we would have proceeded with the examinations this year. So, whatever standard we applied last year will also be applied next year in terms of the flexibility of how we will go about administering the exams,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
He pointed to instances “where the use of technology would have allowed for certain assessments and practicals to be carried out and the use of simulation software [would have allowed] students to demonstrate their competence in particular areas”.
The CXC had reduced the number of labs students were required to do this year and had slashed SBA requirements by as much as 50 per cent in some subject areas.
In the case of Vere Technical, Banton-Ellis said, “Students were baking or making jams and making videos to send to their teachers. For example, in cake baking, they would cut the cake, look at the texture, and explain in the video.”
However, she noted that some students lacked the facilities and resources at home “and because of the socio-economic standing of some of the communities, there were a lot of disadvantaged children”.
Some teachers, however, allowed students to come to their homes to use equipment from their verandahs.
“But one of the things I questioned is, ‘What would have been the difference had they been allowed to just come to do that part (practical) here at the school?’ Teachers wouldn’t have been teaching [theory] because they already did the theory elements online. But, because you had to work with the guidelines set by the ministry, it was very difficult,” she said.
The school’s pass rate in food and nutrition dropped from 91 per cent in 2020 to 74 per cent this year. Home economics – family and resource management - fell from 88 per cent to 70 per cent, and clothing, textile and fashion, from 95 per cent to 75 per cent.
GREEN LIGHT TO RETURN FOR LABS
The Ministry of Education has given the green light for exam cohorts (grades 11 to 13) to return to school in small groups to complete labs and other practical assignments for external exams.
The difficulty in bridging the practicum and theory elements in the virtual set-up is why Foga Road High School Principal Orrett Wallace wants to bring all his Grade 11 exam cohort in for face-to-face exam preparation full-time.
His decision is also buoyed by concerns over the academic level of his students, the constraints of his staff complement, and Internet connectivity issues on campus as well as within the communities in which his students live.
“We have to abide by the ministry guidelines, but 90 per cent of my students are doing practical subjects. Plus, looking at the CSEC results this year, I am somewhat scared because these are the students who missed all of Grade 10,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
“If I take in students who are doing woodwork or information technology for the first three sessions in the morning and they have mathematics online after, the school does not have the Internet connectivity to have so many teachers and students connected after. So, I have to look at my face-to-face situation differently,” he explained of logistical challenges.
“It’s best to take the students (exam cohort) in, then the teachers can remain on the compound and teach the other grades from school via online classes,” he said.
For one 17-year-old who pursued technical drawing and visual arts, working on practical subjects online was “difficult and exhausting”.
“YouTube was something I ended up using constantly to understand [concepts] … and I felt like giving up on visual arts because I was at school until night most times when school reopened for exam students,” he said.
The Government had allowed schools to briefly reopen physical classrooms to students for revision weeks before the CSEC and CAPE sittings this year.
Historically, industries such as bauxite, manufacturing, food and beverage and the sugar cane sector have been supplied with skilled workers coming largely through technical high schools, which is another reason Banton-Ellis wants greater attention paid to the learning deficit of students in practical subjects.
Carvel Stewart, president of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica, believes that, while it was difficult to predict the level of impact the situation will have on industries such as construction, the effects of the learning loss across the board will be felt in the local economy in the years to come.