THE PERFORMANCE of Jamaican students in this year's CXC examinations, particularly mathematics and English, has improved significantly over last year, according to the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Chief Education Officer Wesley Barrett said the results in the General and Technical proficiency exams reflect a continued upward trend, particularly in the core and most critical subjects.
For mathematics, the passes in grades 1, 2 and 3 moved from 26.9 per cent in 1999 to 37.5 per cent this year. In English Language, the passes moved from the 41.2 per cent in 1999 to 47.9 this year. Grades 1, 2 and 3 are the acceptable grades for entry into tertiary institutions.
"There was also in evidence, an improvement in the performance of the students in the science subjects generally," Mr. Barrett said on Wednesday.
In chemistry, 41.4 per cent of the students who sat the exam in 1999 got either grades 1, 2 or 3. This jumped to 48.3 per cent this year. There was also a marginal increase in performance in Physics, with passes moving from 38.1 per cent last year to 39.3 per cent this year.
However, in biology, there was a decline in the number of passes from 51.5 per cent last year to 48.3 per cent this year. This was also the case with integrated science, where there was a fall in the passes from 75.3 per cent in 1999 to 74.6 per cent this year.
There was a mixed bag in the Arts subjects, reflecting improvements in English literature and geography but a decline in performance for Caribbean history.
In English literature, passes moved 52.4 per cent in 1999 to 56.1 per cent this year while the performance in geography moved from 67.8 per cent in 1999 to 68 per cent this year. On the other hand, there was a decline in Caribbean history with passes falling from 72.7 per cent in 1999 to 70.1 per cent this year.
There was also a decline in the performance in Spanish with those receiving passes moving from 66.9 last year to 65.5 per cent for 2000. Information technology saw a massive decline in performance, with passes falling from 80.6 per cent in 1999 to 49 per cent this year.
However, there was a small improvement in principles of business, which saw passes creeping up from 79.8 per cent last year to 80.5 per cent this year.
There was also improvement in the performance on the religious education paper with passes moving from 83.1 per cent last year to 84.6 per cent in 2000.
The Ministry is currently analysing the performance of schools in each subject area.
