CAPE 2021: Guyana performs marginally better than Caribbean

Guyana has emerged at the top of this year’s Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), Director of Operations at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Dr. Nicole Manning announced Thursday.

The examination body made the official announcement of the 2021 CAPE and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) results at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

Dr. Manning said 88 per cent of CAPE students attained acceptable Grades One to Five passes in their exams. She laid out the acceptable grades Guyana achieved as follows: Caribbean Studies, 92 per cent; Communication Studies, 97 per cent; Sociology Units one and two, 96 per cent respectively; Law units one and two, 95 per cent  and 96 per cent respectively; Integrated Mathematics, 80 per cent; Pure Mathematics units one and two, 59 per cent and 75 per cent respectively; Chemistry units one and two, 84 per cent and 95 per cent respectively; Biology units one and two, 90 per cent and 97 per cent respectively.

Regarding CSEC, Dr. Manning indicated that 70 per cent of students from Guyana were able to attain Grades One to Three passes in their exams. This meant that when compared to the region, Guyana performed impressively.

Here are the percentage grades that Guyana achieved when compared to the region: Integrated Science: Guyana 69 per cent, region 66 per cent; Mathematics: Guyana 32 per cent, region 41 per cent; Chemistry: Guyana 61 per cent, region 63 per cent; Physics: Guyana 62 per cent, region 66 per cent; Principles of Business: Guyana 75 per cent region 79 per cent ; Social Studies: Guyana 53 per cent, region 54 per cent; Information Technology: Guyana 93 per cent; region 89 per cent; Office Administration: Guyana 80 per cent, region 79 per cent; Electronic Document Preparation Management (EDPM): 88 per cent, region 87 per cent.

Although attaining a lower percentage than the region in Mathematics, Dr. Manning noted that Guyana performed better when compared to other years.

For 2021, there were two sittings of examinations- June/July for the region and a separate sitting for the St. Vincent and the Grenadines cohort due to the unexpected eruption of the La Soufrière volcano on the island.

As some of the measures aimed at reducing the pressure on students, Dr. Manning indicated that there also a reduction in School Based Assessments (SBA) requirements by as much as 50 per cent in some instances. CXC had also reduced the requirements for specific subjects given COVID-19 restrictions such as oral examinations.

“For the first time we would have introduced a facility known as deferral who might have felt as if they were not ready to sit exams in 2021. They had the opportunity to defer all or some of the subjects. We had also given them an opportunity, also for the first time ever, for students to deter submitting their SBAs until 2022,” Dr. Manning articulated.

Meanwhile, Minister of Education Hon. Priya Manickchand congratulated the students for their remarkable achievements, despite the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If we are honest, and we should be, the pandemic caught us at widely different levels of readiness for the unprecedented demands and new modes o education of delivery. Equally notable is the fact that our systems responded to the disruptions with varying degrees of alacrity.”

Going forward, the education minister pointed out that it is vital that the region examine strategies to advance education and pay equal attention to address systemic barriers that hinder participation and benefiting in this critical sector.

“To all the students in Guyana and the region, I commend your reliance and efforts in face of such dauting challenges over the past year and half. You should be extremely proud of yourself and should use this experience to propel you into even greater achievements in the future.”

Guyana will be announcing the results of the National Grade Six Assessments (NGSA) on Friday,  October 15.