11-Plus gets a minus

ONE OF BARBADOS' most distinguished academics, Sir Roy Marshall, has knocked the 11-Plus examination and blamed it for branding students as failures. Speaking to the SUNDAY SUN yesterday, he said the 11-Plus was not the best way to admit 11-year-olds to secondary school, and challenged educators and wider society to encourage children and not discourage them. He said when children of varying academic abilities were lumped together one could not get the impression that he or she is better than the other. "People develop at different ages. I see people do very well up to sixth-form level and stop there, while others have gone on to university and to much greater heights."
Independent Senator Orlando Marville on Wednesday described Common Entrance and co-education as two monsters that needed to be scrapped. I think we all recognise by now that co-education has been a disaster. There was a thought that if boys and girls were placed together it would have been fine. "Instead, we have incredible cases of sexual predation. We have an obsession with sexual activity which turns some of the pavilions that we held sacred into copulation sites," Marville said. Source:

Oh stop blaming the system! I never hear the 11+ talk yet, far less pitch a slap cross a child head cuz he got a low mark. It is the brainwashed parents and teachers who promote the concept of one school being 'better' then the next. Buying the kid chefette if dem pass to HC and a pack of Hacks if they pass to St. George. The 11+ shouldn't send you to a 'good' school or 'bad' school, it should send you to a school which teaches in a way you understand, and which has a varied curriculum to suit the learning style and preference of its students. So ridiculous, why don't they have scholarships for things like woodwork etc, and see if the finny QC fellas could EVER get one before a student from Grantly Adams. So if you like, at 11, let them do test in Arts, Maths, Language, Science and Social Studies etc and see what they are strong at, and send them to schools which exploit that, and also help in the necessary weaker areas. But when they pass to St Lucy, you want to teach them like QC students and then call dem idiots... you is de idiot if you feel dem interested in the squareroot of a gazillion... teaching people Logarithms... it would be more useful to teach me how to put on a condom or catch fish. If you gine mix dem, you in trouble, barely drag the class along. I taught some spreadsheet classes once... I say ok, let me show you how to calculate Averages in Microsoft Excel... then somebody gine ask me what is an average. :| But i bet yuh she cuh tell me what a hairy canary is... it aint that she can't learn, but I suppose I would have to get a bit more imaginative for her to understand. Orlando feel that once you stop Co-Ed that de students gine stop getting laid? Wuh he feel it does only happen at school? Tell me what class the students on the stair case in Norman Centre does be tekking. Got de place smelling like boodussy when 3 O'clock come.

*After reading this post, 832 students will be told they are failures for passing to St. Lucy Secondary. 489 of them will excel at the Polytechnic and end up in your home fixing your fridge... YOU HC BOY! You know what a condenser is? Ah? AH? nErd...