Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussain has revealed that in the last five years, less than 2% of all the students who have written Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) or Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) exams have actually written more than 15 subjects.
He made the remarks today during a ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Education at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre to announce this year’s CSEC and CAPE results.
Hussain revealed that in 2023, only 155 students out of the 12,108 who wrote exams sat more than 15 subjects, representing some 1.3% whereas in 2024, out of the 11,600 students who wrote the exams, 200 did more than 15 subjects, representing 1.7%.
This year, of the more than 12,500 students who did the exams, 248 wrote less than 15 subjects, which is less than 1.9%.
The CEO emphasised that the Ministry of Education must create an enabling environment for students with varying abilities to excel.
“There is this motion that the Ministry promotes this idea of a large quantity of subjects to be written. That is so far from the truth in terms of policy and statistically,” the CEO said.
He emphasised that there is no policy about writing 15 or more subjects however, if students have the ability or want to, then they will be given the opportunities to do so.
In fact, the CEO highlighted “we cannot have an education system that talks about equity if we are not going to have a place for the gifted, if we are not going to have a place for the extraordinary.”
He contended that there must be space for students who have the ability to “learn an entire Maths syllabus in one month”.
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