While the region’s students have improved their performance in English at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations this year, there have been noticeable declines in the pass rate in Mathematics and English B as well as a minimal decline in the overall pass rate.
This is according to a press release from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), which administers the examinations.
While Guyana’s overall pass rate was 63.39%, in the release CXC noted that 66% of subject entries at the May/June 2016 CSEC examinations achieved Grades I-III, the acceptable grades at CSEC and two percentage points below that of 2015 when 68% of entries achieved similar grades.
This pass rate was bolstered by the improved performance in 14 subjects. There was, however, a decline in the performance of students in 17 subjects, while the performance in four subjects remained constant.
Among the subjects which performed at 90% or better this year are Physical Education and Sport, with 98% of entries achieving acceptable grades; Theatre Arts, with 95%; Agricultural Science (Double Award) with 92%; Electronic Document Preparation and Management with 91%; and Principles of Business with 90%, the release states.
It further notes that while English A saw an improvement in performance, with 67% of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 60% in 2015, in English B there was a 15-percentage point decline as 62% of entries achieved acceptable grades this year compared with 77% in 2015.
For Mathematics, there was a 13-point decline in performance, with 44% of entries achieving acceptable grades this year compared with 57% in 2015.
The performance also declined in Additional Mathematics, where 67% of entries achieved acceptable grades, compared with 72% last year.
The specialised subject areas also saw mixed performances. For the sciences, the biggest improvement was in Biology, with a 14 percent increase over last year. The release explained that 80% of entries for Biology achieved Grades I-III, compared with 66% in 2015, while Chemistry saw a 3% decline in performance, with 56% achieving acceptable grades this year, compared with 59% in 2015. There was also a seven-percentage point decline in the performance in Integrated Science this year, as 64% of entries achieved acceptable grades this year, while 71% achieved the same in 2015.
The performance in Physics improved marginally, with 63% of entries achieving Grades I-III this year, compared with 61% in 2015, while 92% of entries for Agricultural Science (Double Award) achieved acceptable grades compared with 94% in 2015, and 89% of entries for Agricultural Science (Single Award) achieved acceptable grades this year, compared with 87% per cent in 2015.
Human and Social Biology saw an eight-percentage point improvement in performance with 53 % of entries achieving acceptable grades, compared with 45% in 2015.
Meanwhile, in Business, 91% of entries for Electronic Document Preparation and Management achieved acceptable grades, which represented a 1% point improvement in performance on the 90% who did the same in 2015.
For Office Administration, 73% of entries achieved acceptable grades this year, compared with 86% in 2015, while the performance in Principles of Accounts remained the same over the two years, with 66% of entries achieving Grades I-III.
Additionally, performance in Principles of Business was excellent, though it declined marginally, with 90% of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 93% in 2015. Similarly, in Econo-mics, 70% of entries achieved acceptable grades this year, compared with 83 % in 2015.
According to the release, 132,824 candidates sat examinations in 2015, compared to 132,674 candidates this year. Mathematics continued to be the CSEC subject with the largest number of entries, with 92,529 subject entries submitted this year. It is followed closely by English A, with 89,865 entries; Social Studies, with 46,867 entries; Principles of Business with 33,284 entries; and Human and Social Biology with 29,308 entries.
