IN contrast to the improved mathematics grades in the May/June 2015 sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exam, the CXC’s more advanced test — Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) — registered declines in the area.

CAPE is written at the end of the two-year sixth form syllabus and qualifies students for tertiary education. The results were published online late last week.

In a release to the media, the Ministry of Education reported that pure maths (Units I and 2 combined) declined by 5.4 percentage points, applied maths went down 10.1 points, geometrical and electrical engineering drawing dipped by 10.2 points, and electrical and electronic technology plunged 18 percentage points.

Commenting on the decline, Chief Education Officer Dr Grace McLean suggested that in their exam preparation, students were putting disproportionate emphasis on past papers and were not focusing on mastery of fundamental concepts.

She also appeared to blame “structural issues” in the geometrical and electrical engineering drawing syllabus, which she said has been revised for implementation in September, 2015.

In addition to the revision, she said teachers of both geometrical & electrical engineering drawing and electrical and electronic technology subject will be participating in workshops this week.

There were 49,449 CAPE entries from public schools this year, an increase of 3,621 over last year’s sitting. Students wrote subjects the traditional 30 subjects, plus five newly introduced ones –agricultural science, entrepreneurship, physical education and sport, performing arts, and tourism.

Ninety per cent of the candidates passed, with the average pass rate for Unit 1 subjects being 89.2 per cent, and 91.8 per cent for Unit 2 .

“Student performance in law recorded the highest increase of 6.4 percentage points, followed by Information Technology at 5.1 percentage points,” the ministry said.

— Kimone Thompson