KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Ministry of Education says there has been a decline in passes in mathematics and an improvement in english language passes in the May/June sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exam.

Minister with responsibility for Education, Karl Samuda, today revealed that preliminary figures show that mathematics and english recorded passes of 54.6 per cent and 82.6 per cent respectively.

This represents a 3.2 percentage point decrease in Mathematics passes and a 7.4 per cent increase for English Language.

There were also noted improvements in the sciences and some mathematical related subjects. Overall, the highest percentage increase of 22.7 percentage points, was in integrated science.

In the meantime, there was an average pass rate of 91.6 per cent in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) results this year, representing a decline of 0.4 percentage points when compared to 2018.

Full data from the ministry

1: Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) Results for 2019

In this year’s CAPE 14,225 candidates were entered for 35 subjects in Units 1 and 2.

There were 55,318 subject entries from public schools for Units 1 and 2. Of this number 52,732 (approximately 95.3%) were sat, with an average pass rate of 91.6%. This represents a decline of .4 percentage points when compared to 2018.

Unit 1 had a total of 38,709 subject entries of which 36,789 (95%) were sat with a pass rate of 91.2%. This represents a .3 percentage point decrease when compared to last year. Of the 16,609 subject entries for Unit 2, a total of 15,943 (96%) were sat with a pass rate of 92.6%, representing a .6 percentage point decline.

Improved Performances

Despite these slight declines, improved performances were recorded in 18 subject areas, namely Accounting, Agricultural Science Unit 2, Animation & Game Design, Art & Design, Biology, Caribbean Studies, Computer Science, Economics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technology Unit 1, Environmental Science, Financial Services Studies, Green Engineering, Integrated Math, Law, Logistics and Supply Chain Operations (Units 1 & 2), Pure Math and Spanish.

Financial Services Studies and Logistic and Supply Chain Operations, Unit 2 had the highest percentage increases of 33.2 and 20.8 respectively. It should be noted also that Agricultural Science Unit 2 and Pure Mathematics had percentage increases of 11.8 and 5.3 respectively when compared with 2018.

2: Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination Results for 2019

For this year’s CSEC exams, 33,639 students from public schools were registered, and of this number 32,617 (97%) sat and 29,139 (89.3%) obtained grades 1-3. Some 1,510 fewer students were registered when compared to 2018.

Of the candidates entered, 18,627 (55.4%) were females and 15,012 (44.6%) males. Some 18,202 females sat with 16,548 (90.9%) being awarded grades 1-3 while the number of males who sat was 14,415, from which 12,591 (87.3%) obtained grades 1-3.  Of the 34 subjects sat, 23 showed improved pass rates over 2018.

Males achieved higher percentage passes than females in four (4) subjects: Agricultural Science Double Award 98.8% compared to 97.3% for females, Biology 77.2% compared to 76.7% for females, Chemistry 68.4% compared to 66.1% for females and Music, 80% compared to 72.8% for females.

Females outperformed males by 2.3 percentage points in Additional Mathematics.

Mathematics and English

Mathematics and English Language, recorded percentage passes of 54.6 and 82.8 per cent respectively. Compared to last year, this is a 3.2 percentage point decrease in Mathematics and a 7.4 percentage point increase in English Language passes.

Improved Performances

There were noted improvements in the sciences and some mathematical related subjects. Overall, the highest percentage increase of 22.7 percentage points, was in Integrated Science.  There were also increases in the average pass rates for Chemistry (8.6%), Biology (2.6%), Physics (3.9%), Additional Mathematics (3.8%), Agricultural Science-Single Award (7%), Technical Drawing (3.7%), Industrial Technology-Electrical and Building (9.8% and 8.3% respectively), Information Technology (2.2%), Music (10.9%), Textiles, Clothing and Fashion (8.7%) and Visual Arts (11.3%).

Six (6) subjects had average pass rates of over 90%. These were Agricultural Science Double Award (97.9%), Agricultural Science Single Award (90.9%), Food, Nutrition and Health (90.5%), Information Technology (91.1%), Physical Education and Sport (97%) and Principles of Business (90.7%)

Declines

There were declines of 12.8% in English Literature and 12.1% in Human and Social Biology passes when compared with the previous year. French also saw a decrease of 11.4 percentage points.

3: City and Guilds 2018 Preliminary Results

In June 2019, a total of 23,019 students were registered with City and Guilds to sit Mathematics exams while 18,551 were registered to sit English (Reading and Writing) exams.

Mathematics

Of the 23,019 students who were registered for Mathematics, 16,035 entrants were from Grade 11, 6,175 were from the Career Advancement Programme (CAP) and 809 were from the HEART Trust.

A total of 12,640 students sat Mathematics exams from Grade 11. Of that number, 7,447(59%) passed. Of the 4,073 students from the Career Advancement Programme (CAP) who sat the certifying exams, 2,585 or 63% of them passed. Five hundred and seventy five (575) students from HEART sat the exam and 494(86%) passed.

Some 10,526 (61%) of the total 17,288 who sat City and Guilds assessments in Mathematics passed.

English (Reading and Writing)

There were 18,551 students registered for assessment in Reading and Writing. A total of 9444 students from Grade 11 sat the English exams and 7161 (76%) of them passed. Of the 3,618 students who sat the exams from CAP, 2901 (80%) passed. Five hundred and forty four students took the exam from HEART and 534 (98%) passed.

Overall 10,596 (78%) of the 13,606 students who sat the English component passed.