CSEC records 64% pass rate, CAPE 90%

The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) on Friday announced that there is an overall pass rate of 64 per cent of students scoring between Grade One and Three after the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) results were analysed.
It also stated that despite a drop in the number of persons writing the exams, there was an increase in the number of subjects being written by students. The results were officially released on Friday in Anguilla.
During the presentation of the results, it was noted that 55,130 males wrote the exams compared to 77,544 females.
However, there was a decline in the performance in Mathematics when compared to 2015. Overall performance in Mathematics saw a 13 per cent decrease. Candidates recorded a 44 per cent pass rate in Mathematics this year as opposed to 57 per cent in 2015.
Glenroy Cumberbatch, a Registrar at CXC in Barbados noted that there has been a general decline in the Science subjects over the past two years. Also, a decline in Information Technology was also recorded.
On the other hand, English Language saw an improvement from 60 per cent in 2015 to 67 per cent in 2016.
Meanwhile, the performance in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) saw the region attaining a success rate of 90 per cent. The official results for both exams were released on Friday night at 22:00h.
Guyana has been struggling to boost its student performance in Mathematics and English, but last year the country saw improved pass rates at the level of CXC and CAPE. This prompted Education Minister Dr Rupert Roopnaraine to register commendations to the students for their overall performance.
Chief Education Officer Olato Sam had also disclosed, with respect to Guyana, that the analysis of the 2015 CSEC results revealed that the overall pass rate at the General and Technical proficiencies for Grades One to Three was 62.72 per cent as compared to 60.21 per cent in 2014, while the overall 2015 Grades One to Four pass rate was 84.4 per cent.
Of the 35 subject areas written in 2015, 15 recorded excellent performance with the Grades One to Three passes exceeding 75 per cent. In addition, satisfactory performances were recorded in 13 subjects, where the Grades One to Three passes surpassed 50 per cent and Grades One to Four passes were in excess of 75 per cent.
With CXC’s 2016 results out, observers are awaiting the breakdown to confirm whether Guyana has also registered a decline in the areas of Mathematics, Science and Information Technology compared to last year’s figures.
What is certain at this point is that in order for students who wrote the CSEC to uplift their results, they must return all borrowed textbooks that were issued by the Ministry.
The Education Ministry in a recent release had outlined that “Students who fail to return the textbooks, which were loaned to them by their school, will not be able to access their CXC results. This request is in keeping with the Ministry’s Textbook Policy, which states: “Learners must return books before Progress Reports, Examination Results, Recommendations, or References are uplifted.”
The Ministry said it was forced to adopt this “unfortunate position in an effort to provide adequate textbooks and similar opportunities to the next batch of students.”