Minister for Education Shawn Edward says the results for the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) formerly known as the Common Entrance Examination are in and it shows great progress from last years results.
The minister says the results are in from Barbados and although an in depth analysis hasn’t been conducted he is able to share that the national mean has moved from 70.5 to 74.05 thus showing great progression from last years results.
“The results are in from in from Barbados, we received those late last week and during the cost of this week the technical staff of the ministry of education exam unit.. or assessment unit to be specific will be analyzing the results and among other things they would be using the grades from Barbados to assign students to secondary schools.” Edward shared at a Monday morning briefing.
“At a glance I must say I am pleased with what I have seen but we’ve not done any in depth analysis but on the surface you can tell that the National mean has moved from 70.5 to 74.05 and this has not been shared with education officers or the principals of the respective schools. But I just felt I should have mentioned this. This is a step in the right direction, it shows that progress has been made during the period under review.” he disclosed.
He says that a number of countries has given out the examination results but in those countries the results are not used to determine what school a student is assigned to.
“I know that a number of regional jurisdictions or countries where the results have been given out, but what we need to take into consideration is that for some of these territories in the Caribbean they are not using the CPEA results to determine which secondary school students are assigned to and for us, this is the basis on which we decide which school students will be assigned to, so during the course of this week, the examination unit will be engaging in different analyses that need to be done that will be assigned to schools and we’re looking at the 22nd of June, that is next week, to bring all principals together so that the results can be issued.”
Edward says, out of the twenty-five top performers, eighteen are males.
“I can also tell you, at a glance that out of the twenty five top performers eighteen of them are boys. That really speaks well to the effort that has been made as far as instructing our boys is concerned. We know we have had a number of disciplinary issues with our young men in society. And we’ve also noticed a discernible gap in performance at the CXC level between the boys and the girls. So when you get CPEA results and at a glance you can tell eighteen out of your top twenty five top performances are boys it speaks to an issue that we have identified being addressed, and I’m extremely pleased with that.” he disclosed.
The minister says the results do not serve as a death sentence to students as education is a continuous process and this is just one of the junctures that students must experience.
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