NGSA 2023: 57% of students placed at top 5 schools attended public schools

…Education Ministry to catch weaknesses in hinterland gaps – Manickchand

Out of the 868 candidates who were awarded a place at a national school, also known as the top five schools, following the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), 499 of them were from the public school system.
This means that 57.4 per cent of students from the public schools secured places at Queen’s College, The Bishops’ High School, St Stanislaus College, St Rose’s High School and St Joseph High School.

It is a turnaround from the trend of private schools taking these places. The remaining spots were secured by 369 students from private institutions, accounting for the other 42.6 per cent.
According to Education Minister Priya Manickchand, this is one step closer to ending the disparity which previously existed. She added that the investments which Government are injecting into the sector is showing positive signs.
“Investment produces results. We’re convinced of that so we won’t stop investing in our children…We have more children from the public school being awarded places at our national schools than private school children. There has always been a bemoaning of the disparity in performance between private and public. It was something that we always had our eyes set on,” she zeroed in.
In 2019, 738 students were placed at the national schools, due to expanded capacity at these institutions to accommodate more candidates.
The cut-off marks this year were 499.2 for Queen’s College, 496.2 for The Bishops’ High School, 493.6 for St Stanislaus College, 490.7 for St Rose’s High School and 488 for St Joseph High School.

Hinterland gaps
Meanwhile, a trend which has continued for years is the disparity in the performance of coastal students versus those in remote communities. The Minister pointed out that there is a low number of trained teachers in the hinterland, which creates a gap in the performance of students.

“The performance of the hinterland continues to not measure up to the performance on the coast. While we are seeing better, we have not been able to catch the gap there for a variety of reasons. The hinterland has the lowest number of trained teachers. While they are doing amazing work across the country, we see a direct correlation between trained teachers and the results.”
To address such, the Ministry has facilitated easier avenues for persons to complete their training at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), thereby producing a larger batch of teachers every year. Manickchand calculated that this should mean more trained educators for the hinterland communities.
It has been mandated that every teacher who is currently untrained in the system will have to gain the requisite qualifications, aligning with the Ministry’s efforts to have 100 per cent trained teachers within the next few years.
Minister Manickchand positioned, “We have to do what’s in the best interest of children. Ten times the amount of work that happens on the coast has to happen in the hinterland. And we’re saying to you, we’re committed to that route. We know what some of the weaknesses are and we know that we have to catch those weaknesses. We have already begun to do that.”
Some 15,273 students wrote the NGSA on May 3 and 4, 2023. From this number, 287 were Spanish-speaking students. (G12)