KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Floyd Green, says the ministry will be pushing for even greater performance by students in external examinations, especially Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) subjects.

Speaking at TIP Friendly Society’s 2018 Scholarship awards luncheon at the Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston yesterday, Green cited the increase in students’ performance in CSEC, which showed an overall increase of 3.8 per cent this year when compared to 2017, and emphasised that Jamaica’s youth can improve their annual performance in all external examinations.

“We’re equally as happy, as you would have heard from the Minister of Education, Youth and Information. We’ve seen an improvement in our CSEC results. In fact, 22 out of the 34 subject areas saw improvement. In Mathematics, we saw improvement in the performance [and] improvement in English. That is something to celebrate,” Green said.

The state minister said that Jamaica’s teachers should also be commended for the increase, as they, along with parents and guardians, play a major role in imparting knowledge for the students to be prepared for the external examinations.

“Our teachers work extraordinarily hard to ensure the success of our children. We have to remember the teachers in the journey. We have a lot of self-less teachers who go above and beyond to prepare students. Some of them take the pass results as serious as if the child was their own, and we must applaud our teachers,” Green said.

At the luncheon, 37 young people, whose parents are members of the TIP Friendly Society, were awarded with scholarships for their outstanding achievement in their studies.

The youth included 28 students who sat the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT); six students in high schools, two students pursuing undergraduate degrees and one student pursuing a post graduate degree.

One of the GSAT awardees, Joel Barnett, scored a perfect 100 in all the subjects he took.