‘Major changes’ governing SBAs likely – Education Minister

There are likely to be “major changes” governing School Based Assessments (SBAs), Minister of Education Priya Manickchand said on Monday.

“…Guyana is going to change the way we treat SBAs (school-based assessments). It can’t be just for the sake of doing them and it has to be done well and properly.

“We have to have some guidelines for teachers …and for parents and students…about when they receive them, when they are looked at, how they are corrected, the timelines and so on. So we are looking at some of those institutional changes right now,” Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand said on Monday.

She was at the time speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the commissioning of the Mrs Maureen Massiah wing at the Bishop’s High School in Georgetown.

According to Manickchand, the aim is to change the way in which these assessments are conducted, submitted and even marked.

Once done, this is expected to be ease the burden often faced by students preparing to sit the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, allowing them more time for practical exposure.

Manickchand said she has had discussions with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), specifically as it relates to the large volume of SBAs required to be completed by secondary school students, particularly those in the science stream.