NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (September 17, 2013) — While the rest of the Caribbean continued to lament over the small number of students who attained five subject passes and more in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations, more than 50 percent of students who sat the exams in Nevis this year attained five passes or more, a feat Premier of Nevis and Minister of Education in the NIA Hon. Vance Amory described as commendable.
The Education Minister was at the time delivering a report on the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) CSEC level and the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examination (CAPE) level results at a recent sitting of the Nevis Island Assembly.
“I think that is very commendable and it means that we are leading the pack, generally in terms of the number of five subjects and over, as a percentage, not as a total number. Let me stress that,” he said.
Mr. Amory also explained that in 2012 CSEC Mathematics and English A were a major concern to the Education Department. However, in 2013 although Mathematics returned the lowest percentage pass rate for that exam there was still a 4 percent increase over last year. English A on the other hand, registered an overall 18 percent improvement in passes over last year.
Regarding the results for the CXC, the Education Minister noted that though there was room for improvement, those results were overall commendable.
According to Mr. Amory, this year the number of students who registered to write CXC increased by 6 percent, while there was a decrease of 12 percent in the number registered to sit the CAPE.
“The CSEC subject entries for this year was 1,272 of which 1,1301 subject areas were written and the passes totalled 848 giving Nevis a 75 percent pass rate overall. The 141 subject areas that were not written was due to absences, candidates not showing up for examinations or for illness or other mitigating circumstances. It’s something that we’ll have to look into as we think that when students have paid their money to write examinations, that they should not only prepare themselves but that they should also show up…
“The CAPE examinations saw 486 unit entries registered out of which 478 units were actually written. The passes totalled 390 giving the pass rate in Nevis an 82 percent pass rate for this year. That is a very commendable pass rate,” he said.
The two Government schools combined registered in the case of Gingerland Secondary a 75 percent pass rate and the Charlestown Secondary School 1 percentage point greater, 76 percent. Together there was a 75.5 percent pass rate.
For the Sixth Form at the Charlestown Secondary School the students who sat the examinations returned a slight improvement of one percent over last year’s performance and returned an 82 percentage pass over the 81 percentage pass for last year.
In respect of the Lyn Jeffers School, it registered a decrease in the number of students who wrote the CSEC examinations as well as a number of subject areas written. Five students wrote 39 subjects, however, their pass rate for this year increased to 62 percent, a 27 percent increase over last year’s 35 percentage pass.
At the Charlestown Secondary School the highest number of individual subjects attempted was 11; at the Gingerland Secondary it was also 11; at the Lyn Jeffers School it was 10 and at the Sixth Form, the number of individual units attempted over a two-year period was 10.
The Education Minister also spoke to the types of subjects attempted by the island’s students
“In the examination, there were a number of subject areas which recorded 100 percent passes at the Charlestown Secondary School and those subject areas are: Food and Nutrition, Geography, Information Technology, Technical Drawing, Electronic Document Preparation and Management, Building Technology Construction, Building Technology Woods and Mechanical Engineering Technology…
“At the Gingerland Secondary School, the areas were: Agricultural Science, Chemistry, Clothing and Textiles, Food and Nutrition, French, Integrated Science, Physics, Spanish, Technical Drawing, Electronic Document Preparation and Management, Physical Education and Sport and Building Technology Woods… At the Lyn Jeffers School [they were]: Information Technology, Integrated Science, Spanish and Electronic Document Preparation and Management and at the Nevis Sixth Form: Accounting Unit 1, Arts and Design Unit 2, Biology Unit 2, Chemistry Unit 2, Communication Studies, French Unit 2, Literatures in English Unit 2, Sociology Unit 2 and Spanish Units 1 and 2,” he said.
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