In light of the many challenges the education sector has faced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Education says it has decided to postpone all remaining Primary Exit Profile examinations for grades four and five students until the latter half of the Christmas term of the upcoming academic year, beginning September 2021.

According to a media release from the ministry on Friday (May 28), the decision to postpone the exams follows consultations with key stakeholders and psychometricians.

Prior to the postponement, the grade five Performance Tasks examinations were scheduled to commence in the third week of June 2021 and the grade four examinations to begin in the last week of June 2021.

The Ministry’s statement further outlined that students who are currently in grade four and will be transitioning to grade five, those in grade five who will be transitioning to grade six and those who deferred from sitting the grade six PEP exam this year, would all be required to sit the grade five Performance Tasks exam on a date to be announced in the new school year.

Highlighting the disruption in the education sector due to the pandemic, the ministry stated that an important tool it will be using to determine learning loss and gaps will be diagnostic tests.

As such, relevant dates for the sitting of diagnostic tests for grades one to nine are as follows: