A veteran educator has cautioned that the government’s planned overhaul of the school system may fail to address the root causes of poor student performance.
Dr Ian Marshall also warned that children could become “cannon fodder” for untested ideas, unless the root causes of educational challenges are tackled head-on.
A teacher with more than 30 years’ experience across primary, secondary and tertiary levels, Dr Marshall described the sweeping education reforms outlined this week by Minister of Educational Transformation Chad Blackman as “an exercise in first rather than second and third order change”.
He questioned the plan to replace the common entrance examination with a hybrid model testing four subjects instead of two.
He told Barbados TODAY: “If students were unable to secure passes in two areas, how would adding two more areas make them more capable of securing the elusive passing grades?
“Blaming the one-shot exam and attempting to replace it with a hybrid model is myopic.”
He also pointed out that common entrance exam data from the past 15 years showed a growing divide between the highest-performing students and the rest. A hybrid system, he argued, would not fix this problem. The idea of a broader exam was not new; it had been tried in the mid-1980s but was eventually dropped.
While the new system mixes ongoing assessments with final exams, Dr Marshall warned that it would not magically fix the struggles of students who lack basic reading, writing, or maths skills. He questioned how assigning more work would help a child who was already falling behind in these core areas.
He warned that take-home work risked becoming a test of family resources: “Those who have access to help will continue to do well, and those who do not will continue to lag. This was tried with the SBA component of most CSEC subjects . . . if we are being honest, students have access to help at home and elsewhere that allows them to gain a passing grade.”
Dr Marshall also questioned the philosophical basis for the reforms: “Is it just to satisfy a promise made on the spur of the moment, devoid of clear rational thought? Or is it just another experiment, which is poised to use the children of this nation as cannon fodder?”
He argued that changing the type of assessment was not the real problem. He pointed to CXC’s introduction of school-based assessments (SBAs), which were supposed to boost pass rates.
“Decades later,” he noted, “we’re still seeing students leave secondary school without qualifications.”
Fairness, he said, posed another hurdle: how could the government guarantee that assessments at different schools were graded consistently? Even if that challenge was met, he questioned whether a reliable marking system could be implemented nationwide.
On Individualised Education Plans (IEPs), Dr Marshall warned they could not work without support.
“IEPs don’t operate in a vacuum; you need teachers, parents and other stakeholders on board,” he said. Smaller classes and more staff were essential, yet in 2025, schools still struggled with teacher shortages due to illness and burnout.
He stressed that IEPs should not be limited to remedial use alone.
“Some principals would tell you that in many schools, entire year groups may need IEPs,” he said. “So again, it sounds as if we’re going somewhere, but we’re going nowhere, albeit rapidly”.
The education expert renewed a longstanding call for increased resources and school autonomy.
“We need more teachers in the schools, more resources at the school level, and we need to empower principals to lead,” he insisted, questioning the adequacy of current funding: “Do you think it’s right to give a primary school a budget of just $7 000 or $8 000 for an entire year?”
On proposals for student dossiers and mandatory seven-year secondary schooling, Dr Marshall noted these were not innovations.
“In the 1990s… we would get dossiers from the primary schools on each student,” he recalled. “This allowed us to better cater to the needs of the students and also to be aware of those who were having behavioural and other challenges.”
The extended secondary model, he argued, had already proven successful: “We recognised that students would only be able to manage two CXC subjects in fifth form. So we would give them two extra years . . . . They came back to the school, completed two CXCs each successive year or sometimes three . . . . As a result, they were able to meet the matriculation requirements for entry into higher education.”
Dr Marshall pinpointed the core issues in his view: “Our fundamental problem is that our class sizes are too large . . . the quantum of teachers is too small . . . and principals are not given the autonomy over curriculum and financing matters to be able to lead their schools in a way that secures the best school outcomes.”
He pledged further analysis of the reforms in the weeks ahead.
sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb
The post School overhaul risks failing students, warns veteran educator appeared first on Barbados Today.
