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Chief Education Officer Terry-Ann Thomas-Gayle
Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, Terry-Ann Thomas-Gayle, is disputing suggestions that the ministry has engaged the practice of gamesmanship in the placement of students who sit the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exams.
Mrs. Thomas-Gayle says the seven choices of schools given to parents and students is to provide them with more options.
The first to fifth options are considered the preferred choices of students.
"It is not a matter of us playing the game. It is giving our children and our parents more choices. And if it were that we were to look at how they are placed, we do look at the data. We do look at the students who are given their first preference, how many students - and the numbers have been increasing," she suggested.
Mrs. Thomas-Gayle said 7,218 students were successful in being placed at their first choice in the 2025 sitting of the PEP exams.
It was put to the Chief Education Officer on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines on Wednesday that the choices of schools are not equal, as many struggle with inadequate resources to meet the needs of students.
"The truth is...that the leadership of these institutions and the parenting support and the students, they are the ones who made the schools who they are. And if you're saying that we in the ministry, we do give support to all our institutions, all our institutions are resourced. And we do spend more time in these schools that are deemed not ideal. We do resource these schools more than we do to others. And so as a ministry representative, it would not be fair for me to say that these schools are not properly resourced. There are issues and even in the top-tier schools, the ones that are preferred choices, there are issues as well," she admitted.
Mrs. Thomas-Gayle acknowledged that there are 56 schools which fall into this category, but says the ministry has been seeing results since it has been working on a rebranding strategy with stakeholders of the institutions.
President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Linvern Wright, on Wednesday accused the Ministry of Education of not being truthful about how PEP placements are really determined.