The Ministry of Education has mandated the top secondary schools in the country to remove any restrictions to the number of subjects students can write at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
This was announced by Minister of Education Priya Manickchand on Tuesday during the announcement of this year’s CSEC results.
“It’s not as though thousands of children write 20 subjects,” the Education Minister explained, noting that this year, 255 candidates got eight or more Grade Ones and from that, only 33 attained 14 Grade Ones.
She explained that the intention is to allow children the opportunity to write as much subjects as they would want, wherever they are placed. “…they mustn’t have to fight up to get another school where the school is doing it. Stay in your school and shine right there. And the school must make accommodation for that,” Minister Manickchand said.
This mandate has been applied to the national schools as well as the List A schools.
In the past, certain schools in those categories had limited the number of subjects students can write.
The Minister used the example of The Bishops High School, noting that many of that school’s students tried to get into Queens College, because of the limit to the number of subjects they could have written at CSEC.
“You missed (QC) by one mark and then we tell you that you can only write 12 subjects but the QC children can write 30. How fair is that?” Manickchand expressed.
“Bishops, Saints, Roses, Josephs, the List A schools have all been mandated, not advised, mandated, to fix their timetable to allow the students who are eligible to write as many subjects as they want.”
