Guyana has secured the top spots in the Caribbean at the May/June 2020 sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) which are both administered by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC).
This announcement was made on Wednesday by the Education Ministry during a press conference to release the final examination results. The regional top performer for CSEC is Queen’s College’s (QC) Bhedesh Persaud who secured 22 Grade Ones and one Grade Two.
Zane Ramotar, also of Queen’s College has emerged as the region’s top CAPE performer with 14 Grade Ones and one Grade Two passes.
Chief Education Officer, Dr. Marcel Huston revealed that Guyana recorded improved pass rates at the 2020 examinations.
“Generally, Guyana would have done extremely well in terms of how our students have performed. And it is against that backdrop we cannot help but commend those teachers who fought vigorously even in the midst of all the issues. This could not have been possible without the help of all those stakeholders… We could not have done this without a solid team…,” he said.
CAPE
According to Dr. Hutson, a 93.16% general pass rate was recorded at the May/June 2020 sitting of CAPE as compared to 93% in 2019. The gender distribution of the overall CAPE pass rate was 36% males and 64% females. The results for CAPE are reported on a seven-point scale – Grades 1 – VII.
Candidates attaining Grades 1 – V have attained an acceptable standard for matriculation purposes, with Grade One representing an excellent performance, while Grade Two and Three represent very good and good standards of performance respectively.
For CAPE, students were offered units in 35 subject areas, and this year there was an increase in the number of candidates obtaining Grades One and Two passes.
Rounding off the top three performers for CAPE are St Roses’ Naomi Cambridge with 12 Grade Ones, two Grade Twos, and one Grade Three, and Christian Pile from QC who attained 11 Grades Ones, one Grade Two, and one Grade Three.
The other top performers are Sherlock Langevine Jr. and Donelle Pyle from St Stanislaus College. Langevine secured 11 Grade Ones and eight Grade Twos, while Pyle secured nine Grade Ones, three Grades Twos, and two Grades Threes.
The Bishops’ High School’s Nicolas Ally gained 11 Grade Ones and one Grade Two; Zharal Hollingsworth, 10 Grade Ones and one Grade Two, Carl Gilford 10 Grade Ones and one Grade Three and Stefan Hamilton seven Grade Ones, three Grades Twos, two Grade Threes and one Grade Four. QC student Radesa Hack attained 11 Grades Ones, one Grade Two, one Grade three, and three Grade Fours.
CSEC
A total of 12,009 wrote the CSEC 2020 examinations as compared to 11,467 in 2019. The overall pass rate for Grade one to Three in 2020 was 75.9 per cent as compared to 73 per cent the previous year. Even though he described this as a marginal increase, Dr. Hutson noted that it was still commendable.
“…Because in the midst of COVID and all the drama and issues that were working against our students, we still see they were able to show that kind of improvement even though marginal. And I think that is commendable. These children had to fight so many battles.”
Grades One to Three passes in English A remained constant with a pass rate of 77.91 per cent in 2020 as against 77 per cent in 2019. English B improved significantly from 58.1per cent in 2019 to 78.03 per cent in 2020. A noted improvement was recorded in Mathematics with a pass rate of 48.66 per cent in 2020 as compared to 43 per cent in 2019.
The top 10 CSEC students are as follows:
QC’s Bhedesh Persaud who attained 22 Grades Ones and one Grade two; Duvina Seurattan from the Anna Regina Secondary School with 19 Grade Ones and two Grade twos; Anna Regina Secondary’s Swasti Saytoo with 18 Grade Ones three Grade Twos; Geveshwar Rajkishore of Saraswati Vidya Nikitan attained 18 Grade Ones and one Grade Two.
Reyah Khemraj of JC Chandisingh Secondary achieved 17 Grade Ones and three Grade Twos; Shivnarine Chaitram of Saraswati Vidya Nikitan achieved 17 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos; Saraswati Vidya Nikitan’s Atishta Seenarine also attained 17 Grade Ones and two Grade Twos; Saraswati Vidya Nikitan’ Chaitra Singh secured 16 Grade Ones and three Grade Twos and Tabitah Alves of Abrams’ Zuil Secondary School attained 16 Grade Ones and four Grade Twos.
The release of the final May/June 2020 examination results was delayed by CXC after the examination body initiated a region-wide review of preliminary results that were released in September 2020. The review was started after students across several countries made a formal request for their grades to be rechecked, owing to discrepancies.
The Council had committed to complete the process by January 2021, but this failed due to the coronavirus lockdown, which affected its Barbados headquarters. By January 2021, a majority of the reviews had already been completed and CXC began posting final grades via its online portal.
