Boys plus

Kai Alleyne crying and smiling as he receives the Common Entrance results and a congratulatory hug from his teacher Karen Bascombe while his mother, Magistrate Barbara Cooke-Alleyne, and father, attorney-at-law Ramon Alleyne, share in the moment. (Picture by Nigel Browne.)

Tue, June 12, 2012 - 12:07 AM

THE BOYS are fighting back.

Six of them placed in the Top 10 in this year’s Barbados Secondary Schools Entrance Exam as opposed to one last year.

Harrison College-bound Kai Alleyne is the king among them, having scored a total of 246.63 with an A in Composition to tie for the top spot with Aaliyah Johnson and Rhiana Ruck, both of St Stephen’s Primary School. The girls are headed to Queen’s College in September.

Minister of Education Ronald Jones attributed the improved performance from the boys to the fact that the country had been having a conversation with them.

“Boys not performing, boys not doing this . . . and therefore you’re speaking to the boys. ‘You can’, ‘I know you can’, ‘Step up to the plate’,” he said, adding that a similar conversation had taken place with the girls and they had responded beautifully.

He said he was seeing results from that conversation with the boys, who were now joining choirs in secondary schools and getting involved in theatre arts.

Even though there was improvement in the middle to higher end, there was still some work to be done with the boys at the lower end, the minister said.

“We have to put our hearts in there and work assiduously to change that profile.”

Read the full story in today's DAILY NATION.