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An Analysis of the 2013 CSEC English & Math Results
The 2013 CSEC test results for English and Mathematics demonstrate significant improvement over last year. As reported by the Ministry of
Education, 63.7% of students who took the English exam, and 42.2% of those who took the Mathematics exam, received passing grades; this
compared to the 52% and 37% (respectively) who passed these tests last year.
In light of pass-rates for the test administered in 2012, this is doubtlessly fortuitous news…but, we should be careful not to mistake the fire blowing
at our backs for a cool breeze: The historic disparity in pass-rates between the various types of schools still stands; The severity of this discrepancy,
in turn, may be somewhat obfuscated by pass-rates typically being reported as a proportion of those who sat for the exam, rather than being derived
from the total grade-11 cohort that was ostensibly eligible for the exam.
That’s not so much to say that there isn’t value in measuring success on the basis of those who sat for the exam, as it is to suggest that there is “more
than one way to skin a cat”. Indeed, considering the broad applicability of the disciplines of Mathematics and English, that just over half of all
students who were eligible to sit for these exams actually did, seems to be a cause for concern. (The grade-11 cohort taking the 2013 CSECs had
42,061 students. Of that, almost 23,000 sat for Math, and approximately 26,500 sat for English.)
The annually released Gleaner Quality Scores report is in constant development; This year, we have incorporated some of the insights of Dr. Alfred
Sangster, (Educator, founder of UTech Foundation, and former president of CAST/UTech) whose feedback regarding the history of the schools, as
well as the exigency of accounting for such history in the Quality Scores, is much appreciated.
The following results are determined using the Ministry of Education’s method of describing pass-rates as a proportion of those students who sat for
the exams, from 2010 to 2013: