Overall performance in the 2013 May/June Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination improved when compared to results of 2012.
According to the CSEC Public Information Officer, Cleveland Sam, 65 per cent of subject entries achieved acceptable grades – Grades I – III, compared with 62 per cent in 2012.
“This year, performance improved on 21 of the 35 subjects offered, including the two English and two Mathematics subjects. English A saw a 10 per cent improvement in performance with 57 per cent of entries achieving Grades I – III compared with 47 per cent last year; while for English B there was a five per cent improvement with 73 per cent achieving acceptable grades compared with 68 per cent last year,” he said.
Additional Mathematics, which was offered for the first time last year saw improved performance at its second sitting this year – 70 per cent of the entries achieved Grades I-III, compared with 58 per cent at the first sitting.
While there was a slight improvement on Mathematics over last year, performance however, remained below average with 35 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades compared to 33 per cent last year. “The work produced by the majority of the candidates on Paper 02 was unsatisfactory,” the Subject Awards Committee reported.
The Committee noted that more than 13, 000 candidates were unable to measure and state the length of a given line and determine the measure of an angle on one question.
Of the three natural science subjects, performance improved on Biology and Chemistry and declined on Physics. For Biology, there was a marginal improvement – 73 per cent of acceptable grades this year compared with 72 per cent last year. Sixty-two per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades on Chemistry compared with 58 per cent in 2012. For Physics there was a 10-point decline – 66 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades this year compared with 76 per cent last year.
Performance on Human and Social Biology also improved with 63 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 56 per cent last year.
In Agricultural Science (Double Award) performance improved from 91 per cent last year to 96 per cent this year; while Agricultural Science (Single Award) remained fairly steady. This year 93 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades compared with 92 per cent last year.
Principles of Accounts was the most outstanding performer in the business subject cluster, showing the most significantly improved performance. Seventy-five per cent of the 23, 000 entries who took POA achieved acceptable grades compared with 56 per cent last year.
Performance on Economics also improved significantly this year, with 81 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 65 per cent last year.
POB and Office Administration saw a three per cent and one per cent decline respectively.
Performance in foreign languages, French and Spanish, improved by three percentage points this year when compared with 2012. For French 77 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades compared with 2012, and for Spanish 70 per cent achieved similar grades this year compared with 67 per cent last year.
There was a marginal one per cent improvement on Caribbean History with 71 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 70 per cent in 2012. For Social Studies there was a marginal decline in performance with 66 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades compared with 70 per cent last year.
The subjects in the expressive arts cluster performed very well overall. Ninety-three per cent of entries for Theatre Arts achieved acceptable grades compared with 90 per cent in 2012. Visual Arts saw an eight-per cent improvement in performance with 76 per cent achieving acceptable grades compared with 68 per cent last year.
Performance on Music improved with 70 per cent of entries for Music achieving acceptable grades this year compared with 65 per cent last year.
Physical Education and Sport returned the highest percentage of acceptable grades – 96 per cent, even though performance was down slightly when compared with 2012 when 98 per cent of the entries achieved similar grades.
Both candidate entries and subject entries declined this year when compared with 2012. This year 149,311 candidates registered for CSEC examinations, compared with 156,970 candidates in 2012.
Subject entries fell by just over 19,000 when compared with last year – 616,346 subject entries were submitted this year, compared with 635,498 last year.
Mathematics continues to be the largest subject entry with 102,124 entries this year, down from 105,849 entries last year.
English A is the second largest subject with 98,063 entries, down from 101,022 entries last year; it is followed by Social Studies–52,772; Principles of Business– 35,430; and Human and Social Biology–32,280.
Additional Mathematics was the subject with the largest increase of entries; this year, 3,151 subject entries were submitted, up from 1,861 when the subject was first offered last year.
The 19-year-old and over age group constituted 33 per cent of the candidate population this year; the 17-year age group made up 28 per cent; candidates 16-years old accounted for 19 per cent and those 18-years old constituted 15 per cent of the candidates, and candidates at 15-year-old represented just over three per cent of the entries.