THREE in every four Jamaicans between the ages of 25 and 59 years old have no formal certification.

"What I mean is that 75 per cent have not passed any exams at the secondary level or post secondary level," said Dawn Sewell, who was commenting on Caribbean Policy Research Institute's (CaPRI's) latest report.

The think tank's report, which scored Jamaica on education, has painted a grim picture of Jamaica's competitiveness in regional or international competitiveness job market.

"Our economically active age... those people whose educational level is going to be used by international partners to determine our global competitiveness — 75 per cent have no formal certification," said Sewell, who is CaPRI's lead consultant.

To compound the matter, the study also discloses that each year 25 per cent of secondary school students leave school without certification.

"Here is the bigger challenge," she said during her presentation at the Grandiosa Hotel in Montego Bay yesterday. "Every year 25 per cent of our Grade 11 cohort continues to leave school with no certification so what we are doing is we are building on a very, very dangerous platform ,as every year we add another one out of four who goes into that group of persons with no formal certification."

The study also shows that 40 per cent of those in the 25 to 59-year-old bracket did not complete high school.

The report titled Prisms of Possibility: A Report Card on Education in Jamaica, was produced by the Partnership for Educational Revitalisation of the Americas (PREAL) as part of its "education report card" project.

"The piece of work, which was done over two years, beginning in 2010, is a mixed bag as it relates to the state of education," according to Christopher Tufton, co-executive director of CaPRI. "There are very positive areas within the education system, at the same time there are areas where we are lagging, where we are not making sufficient progress, and indeed areas where we are actually declining."