‘Register children in schools to which they were placed’

Senior Education Officer in the Ministry of Education with responsibilities for Assessment and Evaluation, Marcus Caine, is calling on parents to register their children in the secondary schools to which they were placed.{{more}}

In a media briefing held last Monday, July 31, at the Education Ministry’s headquarters, Caine said that all students who wrote the Common Entrance Exam have been placed into secondary schools in keeping with the Ministry’s Universal Secondary Education policy. He, however, admitted that there are some disgruntled parents who are dissatisfied with the schools where their children were placed.Caine explained to the media that the top students were given their choices of schools based on their performance in the examination, while they attempted to place the others geographically, taking into consideration where they live.The senior education official told the media, “All of our secondary school are being upgraded to the level of the Grammar School and High School”, and insisted that there is no need for parents to be worried about their children getting an inferior standard of education in the less popular schools.

He expressed his pleasant surprise at seeing that many of the top performers were requesting enrollment at the Thomas Saunders Secondary School, while last year’s students had wanted to avoid the school. The Thomas Saunders Secondary School was previously the Richmond Hill Primary School and was one of the schools converted as part of the Universal Secondary Education drive.

In response to a question, Chief Education Officer Susan Dougan also highlighted plans afoot to construct the new secondary school in Union Island. She also told the media that teachers from the Grenadines are enrolling in higher learning programmes, stressing that the Ministry is moving towards ensuring that the “playing field” is level in all secondary schools nationwide.