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NGSA 2015 results…Over 55% of top students from private schools
– Success Elementary cops 25 spots
As concerns abound over the continued domination of private schools at the National Grade Six Assessment, this year’s results show that over 55% of the top students were from private schools.
Solomon Cherai of the private school Success Elementary was this year’s NGSA top student. Another student from the same institution earned the second spot.
Over the years, private schools have been known to shine at the NGSA and this year was no different; it was particularly a good one for Success Elementary School which copped 25 spots in the top 1%.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Education, the top 1% comprises 166 students from all Regions except One, Seven and Eight.
An analysis of this data showed that, out of the 166 students in the top 1%, 94 are from private schools. This accounts for 56.6% of the top performers in the country. The majority of these top-performing private schools were drawn from Georgetown.
Further, the Success Elementary School copped approximately 15% of the top students with its 25 candidates. In fact, the country’s top two performers were students of the private school with 530 and 529 marks respectively. The highest attainable score at this year’s exam was 535.
While Success Elementary copped the most spots, another private school came at a close second. This year, Mae’s Under 12 earned 22 spots in the top 1% of the country, approximately 13% of the country’s best performers.
Academy of Excellence, a private school located in Region Three, came in third with 12 of the top spots while New Guyana earned 11 spots.
The public schools finally made appearances with St. Gabriel’s Primary and St. Margaret’s Primary; the schools earned 10 and 8 spots respectively. Green Acres, a private school, also earned 8 spots.
Interestingly, Winfer Gardens, the primary school which had 8 of the top spots last year, was absent from this year’s top 1%. The school had been the public school last year with the highest number of spots.
Success Elementary had also copped the highest number of the top 1% last year. Then, the private school earned 20 out of the 168 students in the top 1%. Mae’s Under 12 once again came in second then with 19 spots.
However, while the number of students in the top 1% decreased, the performance of the private schools nonetheless increased; Success Elementary earned 5 more spots in the top 1% while Mae’s Under 12 picked up 3 more spots from last year.
Meanwhile, the presence of public school students in the top 25 only improved marginally; this year exactly 10 public school students were in the top 25, with 4 of them placing in the top 10. Last year, fewer than 10 of these students had placed in the country’s top 25.
Further, last year saw 6 private school students ranking at the top with only 1 making it into the top 10.
Despite the glaring disparities, Education Minister Dr. Rupert Roopnarine emphasised that there was no need for any debate over public and private schools. Instead, he opined that the students were “all our children”. He nonetheless said that more can be done to improve the education system in Guyana.
Former Education Minister Priya Manickchand had previously pointed out a number of factors that would possibly lead to better performances amongst private schools. She had said that these factors include the screening of children before entry into these schools, the decreased difficulties private schools experience in dismissing teachers, and increased involvement and investment by parents who choose to privately enroll their children.
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