Standardize Testing

Do you think standardize testing gives every child a fair score? I don't think so. Children are all unique, some are fast learners others are slow to warm learners. There's one standardize testing that use to bother me during my childhood years in Jamaica. It was the infamous Common Entrance Examination presently known as the Grade Six Achievement Test(GSAT). Children with hidden special needs/learning disabilities suffer the effect of these testing. Physical disabled children escape the wrath of rigorous study habits and constant rote learning. The agonizing preparation was a stressful experience for children whose coping mechanism lack the positive and nurturing support of the dynamic system. Children are force to prove to their parents, teachers, and their entire community that they are smart and not dunce(name given to children who didn't pass these test). These tests have cause controversy among educators and other private sectors. In addition to controversy, children suffer the wraths of their parents verbal and physical abuse  for not being successful. The Common Entrance examination were originally designed for preparatory school it was not until the later years after Jamaica Independence(1962) that poor and wealthy children could compete to attend a prestigious high school. Two articles from the daily gleaner shared a horrify tales  about a disappointed father, a stress out mother and a child:
THE WHOLE country must be scandalised at the report of a father mercilessly beating his daughter because she did not get a place at a traditional high school in the recent Grade Six Achievement Test. His frustration is understandable: the life chances of thousands of Jamaicans are often determined by the type of secondary school they attend. But why take it out on the child? Frustrated parents and children must learn to direct their frustration in the appropriate direction.At Independence in 1962, we had 41 traditional high schools and 8 senior schools. Only at high school could one take the Cambridge GCE Examinations, which would allow entrance into higher education, but space in those 41 schools was limited. At the same time, we had the Grade 6 students of the 672 All-Age Schools and 21 Junior Schools competing to enter the traditional high schools.The first problem was addressed by the introduction of a competitive examination called the Common Entrance Examination (CEE), where selection would be on the basis of performance, and not wealth. Here for the first time, rich and poor would compete in the same examination for entrance into the same schools, and cracks began to appear in Jamaica's rigid class- and colour-conscious social structure. In 1959, 24,819 students sat the CEE and 1,916 students were placed in the 41 high schools. Those who failed to get a place in a high school went to the senior schools or remained in all-age schools until Grade 9 when their school careers would come to an end.
Parent Experience:

"Last night, he told me he wanted to bang his head on the wall. He can't take it anymore," she says.

The boy, one of the estimated hundreds of GSAT candidates who react in this way to the exam pressure, recently started having migraine headaches and suffers every night from complications, such as swollen temples and neck glands brought on by bronchitis, according to his mother. Emotional problems started surfacing several weeks ago, and this prompted her to consult a child psychiatrist.

"Nobody must fail in that school," the mother remarks angrily. "They put them (to sit) in different averages, like 90s sit here, 80s sit here, 70s sit there and then the 90s criticise the 70s and the 60s which my son is in. They (classmates) tell them they are dunce and they are going to gunman school.

This is just a tip of the iceberg displaying the ramification of standardize testing, who is  the true  beneficiary, parents, educators, students, or examination councils? These tests unfairly assess academic performances on one level when all children does not learn at the same pace. Improvement is necessary in preparation of these tests so that children are assessed  not only on their academic performance but on the overall development of the child.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/56730_Ghost-of-Common-Entrance-haunts-GSAT#ixzz2WLW0Mv8N
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Jamaica

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20020703/cleisure/cleisure2.html
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070221/letters/letters1.html
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/56730_Ghost-of-Common-Entrance-haunts-GSAT