CAPE, CSEC successes this year spread out across the country – Education Minister

– as CEO urges the Ministry to create an enabling environment for students with varying abilities to excel

Minister of Education Priya Manickchand announced that the results of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) were not limited to top secondary schools but were distributed across the country.
Minister Manickchand shared this view at a simple ceremony marking the release of the results at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Friday, August 15.
This year, non-traditional schools such as Zeeburg Secondary, Bygeval Secondary, JC Chandisingh Secondary, and Mackenzie High School achieved a pass rate of more than 85 per cent at the examinations.
With more than 42 secondary schools slated for completion by mid-next year, the Minister said that these schools are creating the opportunities necessary for children to excel.
“[This shows you] that wherever we build schools or offer opportunities, children – our children – excel,” she said.
Addressing the students, Minister Manickchand urged them to grab hold of the many opportunities available now in Guyana, through the GOAL scholarship or by considering that the University of Guyana is free.
“The world is now your oyster. You have a University of Guyana that you can go on to for free and do anything… You now have the world open to you with a Government that has committed that you will become anything you want to be with our support and that we will provide the platform for that,” the Minister advised.
Meanwhile, Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain has revealed that in the last five years, less than 2 per cent of all the students who have written Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) or Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) exams have actually written more than 15 subjects.
Speaking at the ceremony, Hussain revealed that in 2023, only 155 students out of the 12,108 who wrote exams sat more than 15 subjects, representing some 1.3 per cent, whereas in 2024, out of the 11,600 students who wrote the exams, 200 did more than 15 subjects, representing 1.7 per cent.
This year, of the more than 12,500 students who wrote the exams, 248 wrote less than 15 subjects, which is less than 1.9 per cent.
The CEO emphasised that the Ministry of Education must create an enabling environment for students with varying abilities to excel.
“There is this notion that the Ministry promotes this idea of a large quantity of subjects to be written. That is so far from the truth in terms of policy and statistically,” the CEO said.
He emphasised that there is no policy about writing 15 or more subjects. However, if students have the ability or want to, then they will be given the opportunities to do so.
In fact, the CEO highlighted, “We cannot have an education system that talks about equity if we are not going to have a place for the gifted, if we are not going to have a place for the extraordinary.”
He contended that there must be space for students who have the ability to “learn an entire maths syllabus in one month”.