An inside look at research from the School of Education.
Edu-Consultation: Alternative Secondary Transitional Education Programme (ASTEP) Policy Review
Submitted by
katherine on Apr 14, 2011 10:15 am
Last month, the Ministry of Education (MoE), announced the Government’s new programme for children who have not attained mastery on the Grade Four Literacy Test and therefore not able to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test for placement in secondary schools. These students will be moved into what is now known as the Alternative Secondary Transitional Education Programme (ASTEP).
The ASTEP is, according to the MoE, 'designed to provide a safety net for children at the end of the primary level who will require special intensive support and intervention to advance to the next stage.' Each child will remain in the programme for a maximum of two years, over which time their progress will be closely monitored. The programme will focus on developing the literacy skills of the students and ensuring that they are able to successfully transition to the secondary level. The idea behind this programme is that some children need additional time and more specific support before moving on to the secondary level.
The Minister of Education has supported a call for a full parliamentary debate on the Alternative Secondary Transitional Education Programme (ASTEP) and the Jamaica Partners for Educational Progress would like to give our members an opportunity to share their thoughts with each other and policy makers. So, we have secured the final programme documents, as well as the programme summary for your review and reflection. We encourage all members to read the document and share with us your views on the appropriateness and potential effectiveness of this new programme.
The review and comment period will begin on Wednesday, April 27 and end on Friday, May 13. The CoP Facilitation Team will monitor the comments submitted and provide the community with a weekly summary, including suggestions for issues or ideas that could be further explored and fleshed out by the community. The Facilitation Team will compile the feedback and recommendations from our members into a single summary document that will be shared with the Minister of Education at the conclusion of our community review.
How to participate:
- All CoP Members may participate in the consultation by reviewing the ASTEP policy document and submitting a comment.
- Please note that your comments will not be delivered to the entire group until the weekly compilation of posts is sent out by the Facilitation Team.
- At the end of the consultation period, the Facilitation Team will develop a summary document of member recommendations to share with the community.
We are excited for the opportunity to participate in this important policy discussion and we look forward to hearing from all of our members over the next three weeks.
Resource:
Discussion status:
Closed
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Comments (3)
I think that the Ministry of
I think that the Ministry of Education needs to focus on what is happening in the early grades why so many students are unable to pass the literacy test at grade 4. From my own observation and conversation with teachers, it appears to me that the attention being paid to actual reading of books is very limited. The curriculum seems very crowded so the basics e.g. reading & writing receive scant attention.
How much time is actually spent READING ALOUD OR SILENTLY in our grades 1-3 classrooms? My research, though limited, suggests too little.
I fear too that these students who are phased out into an alternative path will be labelled negatively. Already students are talking about being sent to the 'dumb school'. We do not need our students, especially our male students, to have to deal with another negative label!
I pray that the Ministry will re-think the Alternative Secondary Transition Education Programme
Lorna Down
ASTEP
The following are points for consideration
Re: Points for Consideration
I would first like to commend the Ministry of Education on the decision to address the matter of students' literacy needs before sending them wholesale to a secondary high school. For years, this was a worrying problem in our country and a particular headache for teachers at the secondary level. However, I would like to support the importance of one of the excellent considerations raised by my colleague. One such consideration is that of looking very closely at what many of our private schools are doing. There is often a myth that private schools get chiefly rich bright children. This is very far from the truth. Many children in private shools are from very average Jamaican homes and display the range of reading abilities which are seen in public schools. The teachers in these schools are trained by the same colleges and Universities as our teachers in public schools. What are their secrets?
One secret is small classes. I know I can easily be countered with the argument that we do not have the funds to do this in our public schools. Point accepted. However, we must bear in mind that the ability to cater to the individual needs strongly rests, although not exclusively, on the number of students in one class. Sure there are small schools with small classes which are not doing well. This fact does not negate my previous point, however. There are other factors affecting these small schools other than class size which must be addressed.
Despite the eceptions, any reflection on how we improve literacy performance must not exclude classs sizes.
Another private school secret is the availability of material resources and yes the parents make every effort to purchase what is necessary. So maybe we have two secrets here instead of one - Resources and parental interest. This takes us to part of the solution - we have to work on the quality and number of resources and we must find ways to make our public school parents somewhat like our private school parents.
Another private school secret is accountability. No private school will survive a year if certain standards- academic and otherwise are not upheld. Both the administration and its parents make the entire school accountable. There is standardization of what is taught and there is close monitoring of what is done by staff and students, including instruction and assessment.
I am sure that there are other secrets that I do not know about private schools but we can all find out. Maybe these other secrets can impact our students far more than those I have mentioned above.
I have touched on one' baby' consideration. I am sure that a close examination of the other considerations raised by my colleague will yield us rich ideas. If we can address the root causes of our problem, ASTEP will eventually be for the minority or be quickly phased out.