GRADE four students in public schools in Region One, which comprises Kingston, St Andrew and western St Thomas, slightly outperformed their counterparts in other parts of the island in a 2005 examination to measure their competence in reading and writing.

An average of 64 per cent of Region One students achieved mastery in the three components that make up the Grade Four Literacy Test, namely Word Recognition, Reading Comprehension and a Writing Task. The Region One average is one percentage point above that of Region Four (St James, Hanover and Westmoreland), which is 63.

Both Region Five (Manchester and St Elizabeth) and Region Six (Clarendon and St Catherine) average 61 per cent of students achieving mastery in the exam, while Region Two (eastern St Thomas, Portland and St Mary) and Region Three (St Mary, St Ann and Trelawny) average 60 per cent achieving mastery. The national average for the exam, sat by more than 47,000 grade four students in 2005, is 62 per cent of students achieving mastery.

According to the results compiled by the National Council on Education, Region Two has made the greatest improvement since 2003, gaining 12 percentage points from 48 per cent of students achieving mastery. Region Five showed the least improvement since 2003, moving up only three percentage points from 58.

The number of children sitting the Grade Four test jumped by more than 10,000 since 2003, from 38,892 to 47,739.