Guyana’s performances have worsened in Mathematics and English A at the recent May/June Caribbean Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) examinations, with results in the two subjects falling below the declining regional averages.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand yesterday said the ministry had already known of the weakness of students in the two core areas and measures have been put in place to stem poor performance in Mathematics, where only 29.69% of candidates achieved grades one to three, compared with 30.4% in 2011, and 34.5% in 2010.
Region-wide, only 33% of candidates managed acceptable grades at theexamination and the dismal results prompted a call for action to address the situation. (See story on page 18)
For English A, 37.02% of candidates achieved grades one to three passes—plummeting from 60.8% last year and 59.2% the year before. Performance in English A also declined at the regional level after a three year increase in scores. This year was the first examination using the revised syllabus and the decline in performance has been blamed on how students performed on the Essay Paper, especially on the summary and comprehension questions.
Overall, the pass rate for Guyana at the General and Technical proficiencies for Grade One to Three was 58.69%, while for Grades One to Four pass the rate was 80.3%. These figures also represented declines, from 64.4% and 84.6%, respectively, from last year and from 2010, when the country had managed improved overall pass rates.
‘Pilot success’
At a press conference held at the National Center for Education Research Development, at Kingston, Manickchand said the ministry would be scaling up the pilot school project that aims to boost Mathematics and English scores. Among the steps to be taken, she added, is an aggressive public awareness programme that will include interfacing and involving the community and parents for them to join educators in ensuring better scores.
“Guyana has a reason to celebrate,” Manickchand declared, while reporting the results so far from the pilot project, which was initiated in January of this year and implemented in 36 secondary schools from every region across the country. She noted that the overall pass rates for Mathematics and English in the pilot schools were 39.85% in Mathematics and 52.05% in English, above the national and regional averages.
“While the region did worse in Mathematics and while Guyana did worse than last year in Mathematics, the schools where we introduced this programme with strict monitoring did remarkably well than they did last year,” she said. “That to me is a story to us that if we pay attention to this… strategically and aggressively implemented, if we start attacking this problem now in a strategic holistic way, in three, four years, we are not going to be wringing our hands,” she adding, further noting that educating children is not the business of the Ministry of Education alone or the government of Guyana, but every person should help.
From the 36 schools, 18 were yesterday highlighted for their improvements at this year’s examinations. Among them was the Berbice High School, which saw its pass rate rise from 12.8% to 51.56% by students in the two subject areas.
Other schools also recorded improvements, including Santa Rosa Secondary (from 7.4% to 12.85%), Stewartville Secondary (21.4% to 23.7%), Leonora Secondary (5.7% to 9.01%) West Demerara Secondary (62.6% to 80.3%), Covent Garden Secondary (31.3% to 34.36%), Hope Secondary (26.9% to 38.26%), Bygeval Secondary (42.2% to 42.86%), Mahaicony Secondary (32.2% to 41.86%), Skeldon Line Path Secondary (42.9% to 48.64%), JC Chandisingh Secondary (39.4% to 40%), New Amsterdam Multilateral (60.8% to 62.89%), Three Miles Secondary (7.4% to 21.43%), Brickdam Secondary (63.1% 63.83%), East Ruimveldt (4.1% to 12.79%), North Georgetown Secondary (28.7% to 33.33%), North Ruimveldt Secondary (54.9% to 55.7%) and Christ Church (36.4% to 61.91%).
Manickchand was not pleased with the performance of the country’s private schools and said they were “bringing down the national average.” However, she stated that while the ministry did not use private schools in their pilot project, they were afforded the entire textbook and guidelines used.
The need for parental and community involvement was stressed by the Minster. “The schools that had the greatest turnout of parents at their meetings when we went to speak to them are the schools that did better. The schools where the parents didn’t turn out are the schools the programme didn’t work for,” said the Minister.
Using this year’s top student as an example of the rewards of parent and community participation in a child’s education, she said, “At Abram’s Zuil, every time we went, her mother was there, her grandmother was there and that’s the kind of support we had. The community she lived in recognised she was a child with talent and helped.”
Meanwhile, Manickchand reported that at the May/June sitting of the examination there were 13,878 candidates—representing an increase—who sat examinations in 34 subject areas. Of that amount, 8,530 or 62% were from public schools and 5,348 or 38% from private schools, while 8,760 were females and 5118 were males.
The minister said that of the 34 subjects, there were excellent performances in 14, where grade one to three passes exceeded 75%: Agriculture Science (DA), Agriculture Science (SA), Clothing & Textiles, Food & Nutrition, French, Home Economics Management, Information Technology, Integrated Science, Religious Education, Theatre Arts, Electronic Document Preparation and Management, Physical Education & Sport, Building Technology (Const.) and Mechanical Engineering Technology.
Satisfactory performances were recorded in 16 subjects, where over 50% of candidates secured grades one to three passes and over 75% of candidates secured grades one to four passes: Biology, Caribbean History, Economics, English B, Geography, Office Administration, Physics, Principles of Accounts, Principles of Business, Social Studies, Spanish, Technical Drawing, Human and Social Biology, Additional Mathematics, Building Technology (Woods) and Electrical & Electronic Technology.
Meanwhile, apart from Mathematics and English, Chemistry and Visual Arts were the subjects where unsatisfactory performances—less than 50% grade one to three passes—were recorded.
Chemistry recorded a 46.41% pass rate with grades one to three, while Visual Arts saw a 44.51% pass rate.
