Not under my watch!

By Davion Smith, BVI News Online Staff

Minister of Education Myron Walwyn has declared that he will not lower the academic bar for any student.

He made the declaration while he noted that 67 percent of the Grade 12 students enrolled at the Virgin Islands School of Technical Studies (VISTS) did not meet graduation requirements this year.

“When you put standards in place in education, you must hold everyone to the same standard. The minute you start to play with those standards you undermine the integrity of the education system; and that will not happen under my watch as minister.”

“One of the things that I made very clear to my permanent secretary and the chief executive officer is that we are never going to tinker with the education system,” Walwyn said during his address at the VISTS graduation ceremony this month.

Students in public secondary schools are required to meet the education ministry’s standard by accumulating 60 to 75 credits during their senior years from Grades 10 to 12. They are required to pass two vocational subjects, two industry skills subjects, and an elective to attain the credits needed.

Final-year students, in the meantime, are required to pass four core subjects – Mathematics, English, General Science, and Social Science.

Of the 226 Grade 12 students across the territory, 198 of them met the aforementioned requirements.

A breakdown of those numbers shows that eight of 24 final-year students passed at VISTS.

Twenty-nine of 40 passed at the Bregado Flax Educational Centre on Virgin Gorda.

Both Grade 12 students passed at the Claudia Creque Educational Centre on Anegada.

And only three students failed at the territory’s largest secondary school – Elmore Stoutt High, which had 162 final year students.