No More P.S.E., Even after COVID?

Kevin Bernard

Minister of Youth, Sports and E-Governance Kevin Bernard also supports an end to standardized testing.  Minister Bernard says these tests place unnecessary pressures on students which ultimately lead many to underperform. He says he speaks from experience.

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Youth, Sports and E-Governance

“I am one of them. When I left primary school I was always a top student. I was a top student in my primary school. But then I went into to high school. I topped all my classes in high school. At the time we were taking the B.N.S.E. If I had used the B.N.S.E. grade that I had gotten, probably I would have never been given the opportunity to do what I want to do. The thing is, and I have always said this, P.S.E., BJAT, this is an examination that sometime you put the child, the student, at a very strenuous, you know deh the try study hard fuh get this exam and this grade fih beat this one and the next one. When at the end of the day, these students may have been doing very well all along, and just that one day that pressure that is upon them, they do not succeed to what they want to be. So, we should never just go by that. We should look at their records. We should look at the child’s performance throughout the years in high school and primary school. And so, I encourage that. I totally support that.”