Primary School Examination results show failing grades
The Primary School Examination results are finally in and as we told you on Thursday night, they aren’t good. On average, only four point eight percent of the students who sat the exam scored an equivalent of A. Fifty eight point eight percent of the students received D and E scores which range from zero to fifty-nine percent. There are drops in all four tested subject areas: English, Math, Science and Social Studies. Math and Social studies are the subjects that have proven to be the most challenging for the students. The Examination Unit is still analyzing the figures but the head of the Unit, Yvonne Davis took a preliminary look at the results which include the top private and government- aided schools in the country.
Yvonne Davis, Head, Examination Unit
“Some schools are better resourced than others so what we have done is to look at the private schools separate from the grant aided schools. And the top private schools are Belize Elementary, followed by Hummingbird, Bernice Yorke, Toledo Christian Academy and Solid Rock Academy. So those are the top five for the private schools. For the grant aided schools, we have: Mary Hill R.C. School in Corozal, Guinea Grass Pentecostal in Orange Walk, St. Andrews Anglican in Cayo, Presbyterian Bay—I think that’s in Orange Walk as well—and Pancotto Primary School in Sand Hill. This year the main performance in English is at fifty-eight, just point four percent different from last year. So it’s just a slight decrease. For Math, the mean performance is at forty-six point two percent—a huge, a significant difference from the performance last year which was at fifty-three point seven percent. In Social Studies the mean percent is at sixty point seven and again a little decrease from last year which was at sixty-eight point eight percent. In Science, the mean performance is at sixty point nine percent a slight decrease from 2008 which was at sixty-four point six percent. For this year, the weakest area is the math problem solving paper—paper two for Math, the application paper where the students are required to show working in regards to how they come up to an answer fro a particular problem that was tested. And that had proven to be the most difficult paper for them. The mean percent on that paper was only thirty nine point three percent.”
Jose Sanchez
“Is there anything to attribute to that low percentage?”
Yvonne Davis
“It is difficult to tell at this time because we have not completed our analysis of the entire exam. But the ministry is going to, we are going to hold that complete review and we will conduct a full analysis of the exam including the performance over three years to see more or less where our strengths and weakness are. Overall three hundred and twenty-six of them received an A in what ever subject, Eight hundred and seven of them received a B; one thousand four hundred and thirty-three received a C; one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four received D; and two thousand one hundred and sixty-nine students received a E; which is not a satisfactory performance because we would want to see more of the students in the upper levels of A, B and C. But quite a number—I think more than fifty percent received D’s and E’s on the exam. We report the grading bands: A, B, C, D and E’s. So, of course we will want to see excellent at all levels and excellent means that you have mastered eighty percent or more of the material. So, we would want to see excellent performance in all subjects.”
