A call has been made for a comprehensive aptitude test to be implemented in place of the Common Entrance Exam.
Science Teacher at the People’s Cathedral Primary School, Peter Farnum, made the suggestion, even as he noted his support for any move to abolish the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination.
“They are talking about abolishing the Common Entrance, which I am wholeheartedly in agreement with, but what I would like to see take its place is a comprehensive aptitude test, which will determine a child’s gifts, abilities and interests,” Farnum pointed out.
“According to the scriptures, it says, “Bring up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. I think that is more than just moral and spiritual teaching, but I think that applies to the whole individual. So the child then that should go into music, you bring it up in the musical area. The child that should go into languages, you bring him up and give him an opportunity to develop those areas, and the child who should go into plumbing, the child who should go into science, you find out where the child’s gifts and interests are and nurture them in that direction, and that’s what I would like to see take the place of the Common Entrance Exam,” Farnum indicated.
He added, “Something that will say what is this child good at, where would he excel, because not everybody is going to excel at Language Arts and maths, but we need all the disciplines, all the gifts. We need the plumbers, those who are hands on and can do the plumbing work and the electrical work, everything. So I am thinking that we can change the system.”
He meanwhile put forward his view that the current way the education system is structured is failing our children.
“I personally believe that our education system is failing our children, because I have never seen a child who at four or five years old, before they start school, who is not interest in learning everything. They ask numerous questions. [However], you take them and you put them through 15 years of formal education and they don’t seem to be interested in anything. Education should be bringing out that natural curiosity and desire to learn, and as I said, bringing up the children in the way that they are designed and made to go,” Farnum maintained.
(RSM)