The workshop is focusing on the development of an items bank, and retrieval and security of high stake test using a range of approaches.

Speaking at the opening Chief Education Officer, Susan Dougan said an enormous amount of money is being spent by government in developing the infrastructure and quality of education in St.Vincent and the Grenadines. According to Dougan the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines continues to pursue the quality imperative by implementing mechanisms to monitor the progress of the curriculum through the assessment procedures.

She noted that quite a lot of work has been done in the revision of the curriculum materials in the schools and the Ministry has developed an assessment and curriculum policy to cope with all the different needs in the system in terms of the diversity of the students, the need to improve the knowledge of the students and to bring on board the whole idea of the soft skills. Dougan hopes that at the end of the three day process a user manual will be developed for other teachers in the system. During the workshop a number of areas will be looked at including the reviewing of existing curriculum materials and review of the education sector development plan.

The teachers will be involved in the preparation of items for grade Grade K to 9 in the areas of Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Language Arts.

This is the 2nd in a series of workshops for teachers and is funded by the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the European Union in the sum of 6.2 million Euros (EC 21 million dollars).