KINGSTON, Jamaica — A comparison of students’ performance in the 2024 Primary Exit Profile (PEP), with pre and post COVID-19 results, is showing overall improvement across all subject areas in the proficient and highly proficient categories.

This year’s results were compared to 2023 and 2019, when the last full sittings of the assessment were held. Only the Ability Test was administered in 2022.

Education and Youth Minister, Fayval Williams, provided the details during a press briefing at the ministry’s offices in Kingston on Friday, June 21.

She said for Mathematics, 60 per cent of students were ranked in the proficient or highly proficient category this year.

“If we go back and look at the three tests that we were able to compare, in 2019, looking at Mathematics, only 41 per cent of our students were in the highly proficient and proficient category. That moved to 57 per cent in 2023,” the minister noted.

For Language Arts, 67 per cent of students were ranked as proficient or highly proficient, representing a seven-percentage point increase when compared to 2023, she said.

In 2019, the statistics indicate that 55 per cent of students were in the highly proficient or proficient category, which moved to 60 per cent in 2023.

Williams informed that for Science, 70 per cent of students were placed in the proficient or highly proficient category.

“There was a six-point increase in this achievement,” she said, noting that in 2019, only 49 per cent of students were in the highly proficient or proficient category, which jumped to 64 per cent in 2023.

In Social Studies, 72 per cent of students were categorised as proficient or highly proficient, moving from 63 per cent in 2019, and 67 per cent in 2023.

The minister said academic support will be provided for students placed in the beginning and developing categories, and urged parents and guardians to be patient with them.

— JIS