Tobago improves at CSEC, CAPE

KINNESHA GEORGE-HARRY

Tobago’s students have shown overall improvements in this year's Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Examination and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).

So said Kelvin Charles, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary and Secretary of Education, during the weekly post-Executive Council media briefing on Wednesday in Scarborough.

Charles said: “The results indicate an improvement in the performance generally over last year. Passing grades this year: the percentage represents 66.7 per cent, as opposed to 62.9 per cent last year.

"The 2019 assessment saw improvements in 20 subject areas, whereas in 2018, it was 15 subject areas that experienced improvements.”

With 939 students sitting CSEC this year as compared to 921 in 2018, Charles said two schools on the western side of the island had more students achieving passes in five or more subjects.

At Harmon’s School of the Seventh Day Adventists, he said, "Their percentage of five or more passes last years was 24 per cent. This year, it is 75 per cent, and what is also instructive is that the number of students who would have attempted five or more passes this year is few persons less than last year."

At Pentecostal Light and Life Foundation High, in 2018 the percentage was 20 per cent. "In 2019, the percentage is 63 per cent,” he said.

With regard to CAPE, he said a total of 378 students sat the exam in 2019, as compared to 360 in 2018. Charles boasted of a 100 per cent pass rate in subject areas such as tourism, Spanish, physical education and sports, geography and entrepreneurship.