Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon has charged that as a country, we are all to be blamed for the dismal results in last year’s Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams.

“Education is not just about the Ministry of Education, it is about every single person, and when we saw those results last year that all of Jamaica was very much upset about — the CXC results — we have to ask ourselves how did we let this happen.

“Not just the ministry, [although] the ministry has a big role to play, but all of us Jamaicans who allowed our schools and our children to fail in this way. The data has been there for a long time showing that the outcomes are not what we want,” said Morris Dixon as she addressed an Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) media briefing on Friday.

She argued that as a country we have not done what we need to do to ensure better results in external examinations.

“And I say to our private sector, you have to be on board with us in this transformation. This transformation cannot happen without the private sector, it cannot happen without our community groups, it cannot happen without our churches being a part of it. Everybody has a role to play in the transformation,” added Morris Dixon.

Last year Jamaica recorded a decline in CSEC passes when compared to 2022, which was used as the base year, given that there had been exam breaches in 2023, which led to CXC modifying its grading scheme for that year.

In the key subject area of maths, for 2022 Jamaica recorded a 37.3 per cent pass rate. This improved marginally to 38.9 per cent in 2024.

There was a slight decline in the English language passes which, for 2022, was recorded at 77.2 per cent and slipped to 76.4 per cent in 2024.

For this year the targets are 49 per cent for maths and 80 per cent for English.

The oversight committee used Friday’s media briefing at The University of the West Indies Regional Headquarters at Mona to announce a 22 per cent progress in the implementation of the 365 recommendations contained in the Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC) report.

“This is up from the 20 per cent progress reported at our last quarterly briefing,” said ETOC Chairman Dr Adrian Stokes.

According to Stokes, work has begun on all pillars of transformation, and seven recommendations have been fully implemented, with others scheduled to be finalised this year.

He pointed out that progress on the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill continues to lag.

“ETOC urges the Government and all stakeholders to move forward with this critical piece of legislation. It is very difficult to have meaningful transformation in our education without a modern framework that ensures we have the best people in education working in an environment with clear rules and standards. This is why the JTC Bill needs to be completed now,” Stokes said.

He advised that work has begun on 136 initiatives, and over the next 24 months the Ministry of Education plans to commence an additional 148 initiatives.

“This means that by the end of 2026, over 77 per cent of the recommendations from the Patterson report would have been started, with a number of initiatives slated to be completed within that time. Importantly, all of the seven pillars of transformation will be positively impacted by the implementation plan over the next 24 months,” Stokes said.

Launched in July 2020, the JETC, chaired by Professor Orlando Patterson, was mandated to comprehensively review and assess Jamaica’s education system, including its structure, operation, and processes, and recommend an action plan for change.