Whiteman FOR THE past six years, Jamaican students sitting the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) tests have been making marked improvement in their performance in all subjects areas.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture indicate that there has been an upward trend in the performance of students in the critical subjects areas of Mathematics and English Language.
The figures show that in 1997, there was a 30.4 per cent pass rate in English Language, which improved to 39.03 per cent in 1998. The figure increased the following year to 41.2 per cent and climbed further to 57.92 per cent in 2000, dropping slightly to 53.7 per cent in 2002.
For Mathematics, there was a steady increase in the number of students passing the examination at Grades one and two, with the figure climbing from 17.63 per cent in 1997 to 36 per cent in 2002.
There has been an upward movement in the number of persons achieving Grades one and two passes in the Science subjects. For Biology, there has been a steady increase from 35.83 per cent in 1997 to 56.6 per cent in 2001.
This trend, however, fluctuated for Chemistry, whereby the past rate moved from 36.71 per cent in 1997 to 49.2 per cent in 1998, and declined in 1999 to 41.4 per cent. The following year saw an increase to 48.3 per cent, with this figure again declining in 2001 to 42.9 per cent, before improving to 49.7 per cent this year.
For Integrated Science, the pass rate increased steadily from 60.09 per cent in 1997 to 83.78 per cent in 2000, before dropping to 69.4 per cent in 2002.
The statistics also revealed that there was a marked improvement in the business subjects such as Principles of Business, whereby the pass rate improved steadily from 42.65 per cent in 1997, to peak at 80.8 per cent in 2002.
For Information Technology (IT), 51.75 per cent of students passed the subject at Grades one and two in 1997; 56.46 per cent in 1998, 80.6 per cent in 1999, 49 per cent in 2000, 91.76 per cent in 2001 and 66.5 per cent in 2002.
Commenting on this year's CXC results, Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Burchell Whiteman, said the general performance of students has been better compared to previous years.
"While there was a slight slippage in one or two subjects this year, most of them have been better," he pointed out.
He noted that although there was a slight decline in the pass rate for English Language this year, Jamaican students were on par with their Caribbean counterparts. "We're at 53.7 per cent," he said, "which incidentally is exactly the same as the regional average".
"For Mathematics we moved up from where we were. It was only at 30.28 per cent. We're now at 36 per cent, which is about 3 percentage points below the regional average," the Minister continued.
Mr. Whiteman said that when compared to four years ago, many of the scores for this year, showed impressive jumps in the academic performance of the student body. English Language for example, which witnessed a slight decline this year, compared to last year's all time high of a 57.92 per cent pass rate, has nonetheless moved great strides from the 39 per cent pass rate of 1998.
In fact, between 1998 and 2002, increases of between 12 and 31 per cent were recorded in eight subject areas. This include a 14.7 per cent increase in English Language; 12.7 per cent increase in Caribbean History; 16.8 per cent increase in Geography; 15.3 per cent increase in Mathematics; 13.6 per cent improvement in Physics; 10.3 per cent increase in Building Technology; and the pass rate for Principles of Business and Spanish increasing by 31.3 per cent and 15.1 per cent respectively.
In addition, over the four-year period 12 subjects have shown increases in the number of students obtaining tertiary matriculation requirements. The exceptions have been Integrated Science, which has seen a slight decrease in passes by 0.6 per cent (from 70 per cent to 69.4 per cent) and Religious Education, which declined by 3.9 per cent (from 79.4 per cent to 75.5 per cent).
The Minister said while it is common to down play the achievements of the country, one must be careful to ensure accuracy as well as the preservation of the moral of those who worked in the educational system including teachers, students and school officials.
Meanwhile, Wesley Barrett, Chief Education Officer in the Ministry, has attributed the general improvement in performance to the workshops that have been conducted over the years for teachers especially in critical subjects areas such as English Language and Mathematics, and the introduction of the Reform Of Secondary Education (ROSE) curriculum at the lower secondary level in the mid 90s.
Noting the advantages of the programme, Mr. Barrett said it ensured that the curriculum was common among all schools from grades seven to nine. He said as a result of the common curriculum, students were better prepared for the CXC examinations.
The Chief Education Officer pointed out that the increasing awareness of the values of education among Jamaicans was also another reason for the improvement in the performance of students. "I think that there is a greater awareness in the values of education and parents and students are showing much more interest... we still worry about some parents, who still have not quite recognised the value of education and will not put much emphasis on supporting their children.
"But on a whole, I would say that most parents value education and they make an effort to provide their children with a better education than they received," Mr. Barrett stated.
