Region 6 NGSA results consistent, but consistently poor – Chairman

Region Six Chairman David Armogan believes more work is needed to ensure the region’s students perform better at the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA).
On Tuesday, he said the region’s students did “reasonably well” at this year’s NGSA examinations, considering the region’s past performances, but he believes that much more could be achieved.
He explained that schools that have been doing well over the past years continue to do well, and those schools which have, over the years, been performing poorly continued the trend. Those schools, he said, need to be upgraded so that their students can be placed in high-mark schools.
This year, students attained a 37 per cent pass in mathematics. This is compared with a 30 per cent pass rate last year.
“But if you look at it over the years, you will find that, in 2017, we had 42 per cent passes in mathematics; in 2018, we had 34 per cent; in 2019, we had 37.7 per cent; in 2020, we had 35 per cent; in 2021, we had 33 per cent; and then we went down in 2022 to 30 per cent, and we are back up at 37 per cent. So, it is not really a big improvement, it had been pretty much consistent,” Armogan said while giving a breakdown of the region’s performance at this year’s NGSA.
Mathematics, he pointed out, is one of the key subjects in modern-day science and technology.
“That is the way we are going in this country and many other parts of the world,” he added, while emphasizing the importance of mathematics. Armogan said there needs to be an improvement in that subject area.
In English, the past rate was 55 per cent, compared to 60 per cent last year. In 2021, the pass rate was 62 percent.
“We have seen a decline in the performance in English in 2023. In Science, we managed 51 per cent when compared to 44 per cent in 2022 and 39 per cent in 2021. This is the highest percentage we have had so far between 2017 and 2023 – 51 per cent,” he said.
The pass rate for Social Studies was 53 per cent, as against 55 per cent last year and 54 per cent in 2021.
1,650 students sat the examinations in the region this year. The figure last year was 1920.
Overall, the region recorded a 49 per cent pass rate, and in recent years, the pass rate had been between 47 and 49 per cent.
“Generally, I think it has been consistent over the years, but consistently poor I would say, because we need to achieve a higher overall percentage than we have presently of 49 per cent. Forty-nine per cent means that 51 per cent of the students have failed, although they are placed into a secondary school. These figures tell you that 51 per cent of the students have not been able to achieve 50 per cent and for me. That is not good enough,” Armogan said.
Eight of the top ten students in the Region were awarded places at Queen’s College, the other two were awarded places at Bishops’ High. Three students tied for the top place in the region with 502.9 marks. They are Annalisa Siriram of Cropper Primary School, Aaron Munessar Anamayah of Cropper Primary School, and Jade Archibald of St Therese’s Primary School. (G4)