Nazana Weekes and Robert Mansell, both of Queen’s College, have been named top Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) and General Certificate of Education Examination (GCE) students respectively while Rahul Neehal Lall of Anna Regina Multilateral is unofficially the top Caribbean Secondary Certificate Examination (CSEC) student. He secured 14 grade ones and 2 grade twos.
Weekes secured the CAPE top spot with five grade ones in Computer Science 1, Computer Science 2, Information Technology 1, Environmental Science 2 and Pure Mathematics.
Meanwhile Mansell gained his spot as the top GCE student with four ‘A’s in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. Nine other students were listed as GCE top achievers while 16 other names were released as the top CSEC achievers but in no specific order.
Minister of Education Shaik Baskh said at a press conference to release the results yesterday that he was satisfied with the overall performance of students but expressed his disappointment with the CSEC English Language and Literature results.
The minister also said that he was unhappy with the slothfulness of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) in releasing the examination results to Guyana when other Caribbean territories had received theirs almost a week ago.
The individual exam slips with the candidates’ results are not in Guyana as yet and according to the minister it “is in transit with the DHL shipping company.”
The results will be made available to schools tomorrow although it is not definite that the exam slips will be here.
392 candidates entered for CAPE this year compared to 521 in 2007. There was also a slight decline in overall performance from 90.5% last year to 87.9% this year.
As regards the GCE exams there was a decline in the number of candidates writing the Advanced Level and Advanced Subsidiary examination this year. In 2007, 108 students had written the Advanced Level compared to 62 this year. 176 students wrote Advanced Subsidiary last year compared to 137 this year, and 13 were private candidates.
The overall GCE pass rate this year is 82.5%. Performance in several subjects rose significantly with English Literature and History retaining their 100% pass rate. Accounts and Economics rose significantly. Chemistry rose from 80% to 83%, Physics from 65.7% to 75%, and Mathematics from 83.6% to 93.9 %.
There was an increase in CSEC candidates with 9,912 candidates this year compared to 9,480 last year. The pass rate in the General and Technical proficiencies for grade one to three was 57.23%, and for grades one to four 78.67%.
These rates show an increase in the pass rate for grade one to three from 56.94% in 2007 but the pass rate for grades one to four has declined from 79.53% in 2007.
A 75% pass rate from grades one to three was recorded for 19 of the subjects; a 90% pass rate in grade one to four was recorded for 25 of these subjects.
The performance in Mathematics although it has increased somewhat is still considered unsatisfactory. The grade one to three pass rate in Physics has increased significantly from 34.77% last year to 78.11% this year.
A 100% pass rate for grade one to three has been recorded for Music, Physical Education and Sports and Theatre Arts.
