Top CSEC student achieves 20 Grades Ones out of 23 subjects taken, but is not yet named due to challenges to grades

A student who earned 23 passes has been named this year’s CSEC
Top Student in spite of another pupil having received 26 passes.
 
Myrick Smith, education officer for examinations and local registrar
for the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), explains that
selection of the top student is based on the number of Grade One
passes obtained and not the number of subjects taken.
 
With this in mind, Smith says the top student wrote 23 subjects and
obtained 20 Grade Ones and three Grade Twos. The student will not
be named at this time, however, due to challenges with grades – and
therefore the results could change.
 
The student who wrote the 26 subjects, meanwhile, obtained 19
Grade Ones, six Grade Twos, and a Grade Three.

According to Smith, there are two students who currently are tied
for the third position, each having sat 20 subjects and obtained 17
Grade Ones and two Grade Twos. Both candidates have one
ungraded paper, which could move one ahead of the other.
 
If both attain the same grade for the ungraded paper, Smith says,
then there would be a tie for the third-placed top performer in the
2023 examinations.  

Meanwhile, giving a breakdown of this year’s performances, Smith
says that just over 1,200 students from the 21 public and private
secondary schools sat the regional exams, compared to 1,177 in
2022.
 
He says there were 7,696 registrants for the various exams, which is
a drop from last year’s figure of 7,860.
 
This year, 7,346 students actually wrote the respective papers,
which indicates the absence of 350 persons. In 2022, 7,430 exams
were written with 430 students absent.
 
The education officer reports that the pass rate for 2023 is 75.4
percent – which is better than last year’s performance of 72.3
percent, and he commends those who sat the exams, in particular
those who performed well.

Smith, like regional CXC officials, also expresses some concern about
the number of students who failed to sit the exams and says they
wasted their money.