Education Ministry gives details on GSAT replacement

The Ministry of Education has provided further details on its plans to replace the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) with the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exam.  
    
Chief Education Officer Dr. Grace McLean said, although the official implementation of the exam will commence later this year, Grade Six students will not be required to sit the test until May 2019.
    
"The examination has three components. There is the school based component which will begin in Grade Four, and so those set of Grade Four students that we currently have, they will be working along with their teachers and the ministry officials to do various kinds of project-based assessments which will form a part of their overall grade for placement at the secondary level," Dr. McLean outlined. 

She said the Primary Exit Profile is one of the key exams included in the National Standards Curriculum being developed by the ministry.

In the meantime, the chief education officer said the Primary Exit Profile will include a school based assessment for Grade Five students. This will start in September. 
  
Dr. McLean said in Grade Six, there will be two sets of assessments - the ability test, which will evaluate students’ understanding of cultural and international affairs - as well as a Higher Order Test (HOT). These assessments will be given at the end of May when the curriculum is complete.

"What is unique about the HOT is that it will focus on higher order skills of critical thinking, problem solving, giving our students the opportunity to really think and to apply what has been learned, instead of just doing the assessment from home," she asserted.

She said the scores from the assessments will be combined to determine the final grade for the students as well as their placement for secondary school.                        

The ministry said all assessments, including the Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy tests, will now be part of the National Standards and Curriculum.