Secondary Education

The major function of secondary schools is to ensure that:

1. all students acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes which will lay the basic foundation for future jobs and careers, and
2. high levels of literacy, numeracy and oracy  are obtained by building on the primary foundation - reading, writing and problem solving skills, raising them even higher, and deepening levels of understanding across a variety of subject areas.

This need for secondary education is met by a mix of Government secondary schools and Government-assisted secondary schools.

There are twenty-three (22) Government secondary schools.  Twenty (20) of these are co-educational and two (2) are single sex schools. The schools are listed below alphabetically with the single sex schools specially designated:

The Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation has general oversight of the supervision, management and delivery of the curriculum at all secondary schools.  In addition each Government secondary school is managed by a Board of Management which is responsible for the implementation of the Ministry's policies. Each Board consists of a chairman and eight members, two of whom are nominated by the school's parent-teacher association and the Congress of Trade Union and Staff Associations of Barbados. The Chief Education Officer nominates a representative to sit on each Board.

All schools offer studies prescribed by the national curriculum.  Details of the subject offerings and extra-curricular activities are provided on the individual schools' sites.