No reallocations

THERE will be no reallocations this year.

This was the message that was delivered loud and clear by the Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones who announced the results of the Barbados Secondary Schools' Entrance Examination at a press conference yesterday, at Ministry headquarters.

“No reallocations. I don’t want to leave any doubt. No reallocations. We go with your choices.”

He said that allocations are done based on the scores, the zone, and the choices that a parent placed on their child’s form, and therefore, he did not want to see parents rushing to Ministry headquarters tomorrow demanding their child be reallocated.

“Allocation to the schools is done through a very involved process, depending on the rank of choice and the zone that you are in, and all of this.

“If you have now to – as it happened four years ago – to rush to this Ministry because somehow, based on your choice, you got your choice, but your child got a mark maybe two or three percentage points above, and another school shows that mark profile, that you rush and say, ‘oh, I want to transfer my child’ or ‘let my child be reallocated,’ this cannot be done, because each secondary school has a certain amount of students that they can accommodate, said the Minister of Education.

“That is extremely difficult, because we ensure that if school A has 180 places, and 180 students are allocated from the beginning, school B has 210 students, 210 are allocated from the beginning. We can’t put in 240, or if it is 180, 210.”

Jones said that this often happens because parents want their child to go to a particular school because they went there, and he reiterated his message that schools cannot be expanded just because you want your child to go to that school.

“Schools are not elastic. In other words, you put 1000 in so it stretches out, when you got 600 it closes in. Schools are not elastic. There may be six first formers in some, maybe seven, in some there maybe five, four. So we have to observe standards and the appropriate space for each child.

“It is difficult, and the stress of trying to find something that doesn’t exist is immense. It is immense. So no reallocations this year, because we just don’t have room for any reallocations. I hope I made it plain, made it bold and italicised it.”

Therefore, he urged parents to be congratulate their child regardless of which school they passed for.