Stephen VasciannieLAST WEEK, I offered a broad statistical analysis of the performance of secondary students in traditional and upgraded secondary schools at the CXC level. The main point advanced was that, notwithstanding recent suggestions to the contrary, the gap between traditional and upgraded secondary schools is substantial; last week's analysis was borne out largely by reference to CXC passes in the English Language paper for June 2001. Today, I will consider, in particular, the situation concerning Mathematics.
Before examining the statistics, one preliminary issue needs to be addressed. The main purpose of this exercise is to identify and publicise information that will help parents, teachers, policy-makers, and general readers to understand the performance level of our students. It is not meant as a criticism of teachers, and, indeed, in last week's column, I sought to make this point - in passing - with express reference to Haile Selassie High, a school with a low pass rate in CXC English.
Generally, the results will not provide a fair indication of the performance of individual teachers in schools because, in our current scheme for secondary education, students with intellectual gifts tend to gravitate to a small number of top-ranking schools. This tends to leave upgraded secondary schools with weaker candidates, and the teachers at those schools have a Herculean task in bringing weaker students up to the bar of the CXC.
That said, however, we need to be clear on what is happening. Let us assume, for argument's sake, that upgraded schools have the best teachers in the island: the figures would suggest that even with the best teachers, the vast majority of students in the upgraded secondary schools cannot reach a passing grade for English Language. Now, let us relax our assumption, and suggest that good teachers are evenly distributed across traditional and upgraded secondary schools: the figures still suggest that the vast majority of students in upgraded schools are falling short of the mark.
At very least, this indicates that countless students are losing their way at some stage in the educational system between ages 4 and 17. The points of weakness within the system will need to be recognised. My broad analysis of the CXC statistics cannot really identify those areas of weakness, but it can emphasise that the weaknesses exist in fact, and it can point, generally, towards places that need more careful attention.
STATISTICAL EVIDENCE
For the statistics, again I rely on the publication of the National Council on Education (NCE), entitled Performance of Jamaican Students in the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) 2001. And, for the purpose of a review of performance in Mathematics, perhaps the first point to note is that results at both traditional and upgraded schools leave much to be desired. In 2001, only 40 per cent of the candidates from traditional secondary schools obtained passing grades, while for technical high schools candidates passing fell to 26 per cent, and for upgraded high schools it was 11 per cent.
With respect to traditional secondary schools, the ten schools with the best performance levels (in terms of passing grades) are set out in Table 1.
Table 1
Top 10 performance levels, Traditional Secondary Schools
Mathematics (CXC), General Proficiency, June 2001
School % Passes
1. Campion 98%
2. Immaculate 82%
3. MoBay High 68%
4. Westwood 67%
5. Glenmuir 63%
6. St. Andrew's 62%
7. Wolmer's Girls 60%
8. St. Hugh's 60%
9. Wolmer's Boys 57%
10. Kingston College 56%
With reference to Table 1, therefore, 98 per cent of the candidates from Campion obtained at least Grade 3 at CXC Mathematics, while 82 per cent from Immaculate and 68 per cent from MoBay High did so. At each of the schools listed among the top ten in Table 1, most of the students in the eligible cohort were allowed to take the examination. At Glenmuir, 70 per cent of the eligible cohort took the examination, while at Westwood, 72 per cent of the eligible cohort proceeded to the examination. For all other schools in the top ten, over 85 per cent of eligible candidates were allowed to take the examination. The figures, therefore, provide a fair representation of the overall performance of students in a particular year at each of the schools in the top ten for traditional high schools.
For upgraded high schools, the ranking of the top ten schools in CXC Mathematics for June 2001, based on passing grades, is set out in Table 2.
Table 2
Top 10 performance levels, upgraded
High Schools
Mathematics (CXC), General Proficiency,
June 2001
School % Passes
1. Bridgeport High 43%
2. Oracabessa High 40%
3. Edith Dalton James 34%
4. Buff Bay High 31%
5. Kingston High 30%
6. Old Harbour High 29%
7. Vauxhall High 29%
8. Cambridge High 29%
9. Fair Prospect 25%
10. Guys Hill High 23%
In the discussion concerning performance in the English Language in last week's column, I noted that upgraded secondary schools seemed to rely heavily on the screening of candidates for CXC examinations. The practice of screening is also evident in the case of Mathematics. Thus, 43 per cent of candidates at Bridgeport High are listed in Table 2 as having passed the examination; however, it is important to notice that at Bridgeport High, of the 443 students in the eligible cohort for the examination, only 42 actually did it; 43 per cent of those 42 candidates, or 18 students, were successful. Or, in other words, only approximately 9 per cent of the eligible class actually passed the examination at Bridgeport High.
Similarly, if we place the number of students actually passing the CXC Mathematics examination against the number eligible to take the examination, the figures for other upgraded high schools are depressingly low. Oracabessa High is listed in Table 2 as having a 40 per cent pass rate, but the percentage of students in the eligible cohort who passed the examination is about 4 per cent; for Edith Dalton James, it is 6 per cent, and for Buff Bay it is 4 per cent. And these schools, remember, appear to have the better results among the upgraded high schools.
MIND THE GAP
It is, therefore, highly misleading to argue that the upgraded schools are anywhere near to traditional secondary schools in terms of examination performance. What these figures show is the clear need to continue efforts at improving upgraded secondary schools. But improvement cannot be achieved through exhortation alone; nor can it be achieved by disregarding statistical evidence.
Finally, my emphasis in this column, and last week's, has been on performance as indicated by examination results. Of course, examination results are not the only measure of a school's performance rating. And many of us would argue that additional considerations, such as the nature of social interaction at school, the sense of belonging created within the school environment, the level of discipline and sense of values inculcated among the students, the nurturing of extra-curricular talent and the way in which the school cultivates the self-esteem of each child are among the critical factors that help to determine the quality of education on offer.
But, in the end, schools are primarily about learning, and examinations constitute an important index of learning in our system. For this reason, if examination results are poor, we cannot brush that reality under the carpet.
Stephen Vasciannie is a professor at the University of the West Indies.
