Education Director disappointed with CXC results, especially in maths, but acknowledges pandemic’s impact on students
Having previewed the results of this year’s Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Director of Education Clare Browne says he is not happy with our students’ performance – especially in mathematics.
Ahead of the official release this evening, September 5, CXC met with the various Ministries of Education on Friday, September 2, to discuss student performance.
A disappointed Browne says he looked at the general statistics and,
when compared to last year, student performance had dropped from the 70 percentage range to the upper 60s.
The Director of Education points out that students who wrote the May/June exams had faced the COVID-19 pandemic and its challenges – including several school closures – over the past two and a half years.
These students would have been in Form Three when the pandemic began and, therefore, had been deprived of the normal school learning and environment.
They had attended school only half of the time and had undergone the blended-learning experience – which included some face-to-face and some online instruction.
Accordingly, Browne says these pupils’ foundation was shaken over the years because of the instability of the education system.
He says the 2021 exam-sitters were in the pandemic for a far shorter time and would have been in fourth form when it began.
Browne says he is not making excuses. However, as much as the Ministry would have preferred a better performance, it acknowledges that the pandemic impacted the students in a major way, as demonstrated by the results.
Speaking to the mathematics results, Browne says more attention needs to be paid to this subject area. Accordingly, he promises that greater resources will be made available to assist teachers and students to overcome the challenges of this subject.
Meanwhile, candidates who wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) may log on to the CXC website from 6 p.m. this evening to access their preliminary results.
