Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne has sharply criticised the government’s move to abolish the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination – commonly known as the common entrance or 11-plus exam – demanding immediate public consultation.“When this government threatens to dismantle a system that it does not understand, then this government must stand condemned for betraying the interests of people in this country,” he argued on Tuesday in his response to the government’s Budget.Describing the test as “sacred, but not perfect”, Thorne said the government had an obligation to openly communicate with beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries about the usefulness of the test.The Christ Church South MP suggested that low marks in the exam were not due to problems with the test itself, but rather issues within the education system.He said: “There are problems in the primary schools. A child fails an 11-Plus exam. He doesn’t fail that exam on that morning. He has been failing from the time he was four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 (years). His failure has been daily, weekly and yearly.”He was adamant that the test, which has been in place for several decades, “must not be a subject for callous dismantling, unless the people who are invested in that scheme and in that system, are given fair opportunity to say how they feel about it”.“That has been this government’s failure,” he asserted. “That this government has not consulted with the people of this country.”
