Prior to 1967, all students in The Bahamas, particularly in New Providence, were first placed in Preparatory Schools in Class 1 and Class 2. This prepared them for the Junior School, which began at Grade 1 and continued through Grade 4.
The next level of schooling was the Senior School, which began at Grade 5 (equivalent to today's Grade 7). In the Senior School, students progressed to Grade 6 (equivalent to today's Grade eight).
I recall at Eastern Senior progressing from Grade 6, where I took the School Leaving Certificate, to Standard 7 (equivalent to today's Grade nine). In Standard 7, the first year preparation for the Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC), which had replaced the Cambridge Junior Certificate (CJC).
The following year I matriculated to Form 7 (equivalent to today's Grade ten), where I had the final preparation for the BJC Examination. However, in retrospect, the rigor and the level of the work given in Form 7 was more than equivalent to 12th Grade studies today.
The BJC Examination, being the equivalent to the CJC, was the terminating examination for all Senior School students because the General Certificate of Education (GCE) was only taken in the High Schools such as Government High School and all the other private high schools.
I must add that the BJC of yesteryear was the determining factor for entrance into the employment market and the private high schools if you did not enter by taking the Common Entrance Examination. My entry into the teaching profession as a Student Teacher was on the basis of the quality of my BJC passes.
Fast forward to today, and by comparison, the five-year-olds who would have entered the Prep school at age five or six, depending upon what was the basic admission age, spent at least two years, now are placed in Grade 1. Therefore, they missed the two years of preparation for what was the Junior School.
In essence, what happened before 1967, was the equivalent of preschool and kindergarten. By eliminating those first two years of preparatory schooling, students were disadvantaged. This change in educational policy, though good in its intention, was implemented without reference to the relevant stakeholders is at the root of the problems being experienced today.
The attempt to introduce preschools was an effort to correct the changes that were made in 1967, which precipitated the problems alluded to in the previous paragraph. Those problems are too numerous to elucidate upon in this post. In previous posts about the Education System, I have attempted to address some of those problems. None-the-less, future posts will further discuss the Education System and its issues, successes, and problems.
In truth and in fact, in pre-1967, the education system had it right; but progress, while good, can cause a system to go awry by "throwing out the baby" with the bath water. Perhaps the pre-1967 system needs to be revisited to help us determine where we took the wrong turn.
