Every generation of Jamaican children seems to inherit a different acronym.

For my generation, it was Common Entrance.

For the generation that followed, it was GSAT.

Today, children sit PEP.

The names change. The pressure does not.

When people talk about these exams, they usually talk about scores, school placement, and educational outcomes. They talk about rankings and prestige. They talk about which high school a child will attend and what opportunities may follow.

What I remember is fear.

As a child, I understood that adults were spending money on me.

My mother paid for extra lessons.

Then she left for America, and my father took over paying for them.

Children are often more aware than adults realize. I knew those lessons cost money. I knew sacrifices were being made. I knew expectations came attached to every dollar spent.

What made it worse was that my father was a violent man.

I did not know exactly what would happen if I failed, but I knew failure was dangerous.

When adults talk about academic pressure, they often describe stress. What I felt was closer to terror.

The exam wasn’t simply a test of what I knew. In my mind, it felt like a test of whether I was worth the investment.

Looking back, I don’t think many adults understood what that pressure felt like from a child’s perspective.

I remember the extra lessons.

I remember Saturdays that belonged to Common Entrance.

I remember adults discussing scores as though our futures were already written.

I remember the feeling that one exam could determine the course of an entire life.

As an adult, I find that idea troubling.

Children do not all develop at the same rate.

Some bloom early.

Some bloom late.

Some struggle in one environment and thrive in another.

Some carry burdens at home that adults never see.

Yet we often ask eleven-year-olds to carry the weight of decisions that seem enormous at that age.

In a strange twist of fate, I never had to see the process through.

Before I could sit Common Entrance, I emigrated to the United States and entered sixth grade there.

In one sense, I escaped the outcome.

I never had to discover which school I would be assigned to.

I never had to live with a score that might have followed me through my teenage years.

But the anxiety remained with me long after I left Jamaica.

Even now, decades later, I can remember the pressure.

I can remember the fear.

I can remember how adults spoke about the exam as though it were a doorway that could open or close the rest of your life.

Today, Jamaica has moved from Common Entrance to GSAT and now to PEP.

Educational systems evolve.

Testing methods change.

Names come and go.

My hope is that we never forget the children sitting those exams.

Because behind every score is a child trying to understand what the adults around them expect.

Behind every acronym is a child wondering whether they will be good enough.

And no child should grow up believing that a single exam determines their worth.

Please read “I Sabotaged My Common Entrance Exam“