Teachers at Hilda Skeene Primary School say the success of children’s education depends heavily on parental involvement and access to adequate resources, as debate continues over whether private schools outperform their public counterparts.

The comments came on Friday during the school’s graduation ceremony at The Crane Resort, St Philip, days after the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) called on the Ministry of Education Transformation to explain why private schools appeared to outperform public schools in this year’s Common Entrance Examination results. Lovell argued that differences in funding, classroom resources, parental involvement and repeated school closures made direct comparisons between the two sectors unfair.

Hilda Skeene Primary produced one of the island’s top performers in this year’s Common Entrance Examination, with Josiah Gibson placing second islandwide after scoring 100 per cent in Mathematics, alongside several other students achieving marks in the 90s.