JC exams to be introduced

Auxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
THE government is set to introduce Junior Certificate examinations at Grade Seven as part of reforms in the education sector. The reforms will elevate the Grade Seven examinations to Junior Certificate Examinations in 2021. Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora said pupils doing Grade Two now would be the first to sit the examinations.

“In the primary school the first group of learners to write the new examinations on the new curriculum would be the Grade Threes next year who are in Grade Two now.

“Next year they will start a new trajectory on the new curriculum all the way to 2021 when they write the first junior examinations,” said Dokora.

Minister Dokora said the transitions meant that schools will run old and new steams at the same time.

He said during the process there would be differentiated training and improvement of teachers’ skills until the old curriculum is phased out.

The government this year started phase one of rolling out the new education curriculum which has embraced practical, heritage and skills training.

“During this roll out there are going to be differentiated uploading of grades and forms onto the new platform as we move from phase one in 2016 to phase two in 2017.

There would be a graduated inclusion of all ECDs, that is both private and public schools and then within the formal school system ECD A, Grade One, Grade Three, Form One, Three and Five will go onto the new platform in 2017 as part of phase two,” said Dokora.

Some of the learning areas which have been added to the ECD curriculum are visual and performing arts, mass displays, maths and science, family and heritage studies, information and technology.