The Government has launched the Alternative Pathways to Secondary Education (APSE), which will provide students with additional and improved teaching programmes.

Under APSE, instruction will be based on tailored curricula, enabling each learner to perform to his/her fullest potential, based on aptitude, interest and ability.

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, said the new programme will re-position secondary education as inclusive, customized, diverse, relevant, equitable and outcomes based.

He was delivering the keynote address at the official launch, on March 23, at the regional headquarters of the University of the West Indies, at Mona.

“This new approach will allow us to institute programmes to ensure that every student is given the best opportunity to learn and succeed,” he told the gathering, adding that under the programme, talents of students will be unearthed and channelled into directions to maximize their potential.

Students at the secondary level will be placed on a path to complete at least seven years at schools, or up to age 18. It will allow for them to identify their careers at an early stage, and progress through the system.

At grades 12 and 13, students will have the opportunity, through the Career Advancement Programme, to move into the traditional sixth form programme, or a technical sixth form programme, which will also include opportunities under the National Apprenticeship Programme.

The Minister said the programme has been successful in many countries, including Singapore, and described it as a “seamless system” that will see all people transitioning into meaningful pursuits.

Emphasising that no child should be left behind in the attainment of education, the Minister said every student “must be given every chance to succeed, and that means identifying that thing, or those things for which that student is best suited and most talented.”  __JIS