Barbados Education System Reform to Abolish Entrance Exam by 2025: Updates and Plans

If everything goes to plan, in 2025 the Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Examination will be abolished and the proposed reform of the country’s education system will be in effect.

This was disclosed by chief education officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw on Thursday during the launch of the Education Transformation proposals at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

“This new system that we are promising will have feeder schools and these feeder schools will be primary schools where students from these primary schools will go into a secondary catchment school,” she noted.

Also on the cards is the construction of two new schools, which Archer-Bradshaw said would lower student to teacher ratio in Barbados.

At the launch, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced the location of the two schools.

“[Government has purchased] the site of the old Ursuline Convent and the site Chelston St Michael in order to build a school that is focussed also on preparing students in specialist areas, ” she added.

One of the Ministry of Education’s proposals include a new form of secondary school certification dubbed the Barbados National Secondary Diploma.

“Right now many of our children look to write CXC and CAPE… we want to make sure our children have options… we want them to have a piece of paper that says I am competent in numeracy, literacy, so that if a child does not leave with CXCs, it will show that they are competent in certain areas,” said Archer-Bradshaw.

After consultations with key stakeholders and the public, the proposals will put before cabinet in January 2024 for approval, if approved they are set to be implemented by September 2025. (AL)