MoE launches textbooks to improve Science, Social Studies performances at NGSA

Education Minister Priya Manickchand, on Tuesday, announced that the Education Ministry will be rolling out a new resource for teachers and students at the grades four (4), five (5) and Six (6) levels.
According to the Minister this new resource which is being called “The concise notes for NGSA” will make the learning process for social studies and science significantly easier and also improve performances in these subjects at the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) exams.
She noted that the new textbook summarises educational content in a way that is easier and more convenient for learners to understand.
“We brought out this beautiful new resource that I want to introduce to you. There are the concise notes for NGSA social studies and then there are concise notes for NGSA science and what this does is put all that heavy, heavy notes that your children usually get exercise book upon exercise book into a concise form.”
In this regard, Minister Manickchand expressed her confidence in the new learning resource, however, she explained that positive results will only be seen if these textbooks are utilised properly.
“And I tell you, if you use these and you use them effectively, your children will be ready for the social studies and science exams for NGSA so if they know this and they answer questions in and around these notes and they understand these concepts, they’re bang on ready for those exams.”

Moreover, the Minister highlighted that the Ministry is currently in the process of printing the new textbooks, a process which she revealed may take a while. However, in the interim parents and teachers can access a digital copy of the textbook via the Ministry’s website.
“Now we are printing these, but printing processes take long because we go out to the public and that takes a while and then people take a while to print. These are also available on our website.”
Earlier this year during the announcement of this year’s NGSA examination results, Director of Operations, Examination Services at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Dr Nicole Manning revealed that Social Studies saw an increase in pass rates.
She added that Social Studies saw a whopping 62.8 per cent of candidates receiving over 50 per cent. For students receiving full scores for Social Students saw an increase from 17 per cent to 52 per cent. There has also been a reduction in candidates scoring zero.
However, Dr Manning noted that the performance in science dipped slightly. “For the sciences, we saw a slight reduction in terms of the percentage of candidates scoring 50 per cent and above and we saw a reduction in candidates receiving full scores and zero. Even though that happened, I want you to note, that the average was still steady.