NGSA pupils did exceedingly well despite COVID-19 challenges

NGSA pupils did exceedingly well despite COVID-19 challenges – CEO

Sep 22, 2020 News

Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, pupils who sat the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) written on July 1 and 2, 2020 have done exceedingly well. This, Chief Education Officer (CEO) within the Ministry of Education, Dr. Marcel Huston, told a small gathering as the NGSA results were released yesterday at the Kingston, Georgetown National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD).

Chief Education Officer, Marcel Huston.

In fact, Dr. Hutson told pupils, parents, teachers and well-wishers gathered at NCERD that this year’s top NGSA performers, Samuel Barkoye of North Georgetown Primary and Rovin Lall of Stella Maris Primary, each secured 525 marks–three marks short of the highest attainable score of 528.
Alexander Singh, a pupil of the Marian Academy came in third position with 524 marks while two candidates, Lianna Dharampaul of the Mon Repos Primary and Brandon Ramdin of Westfield Prep, who gained 523 marks each, shared the fourth position.
The sixth position was shared by three candidates, Britney Peters of the One Mile Primary, Gabriel Felix of the New Guyana School, and Dhanesh Tularam of the Academy of Excellence, who gained 521 marks each.
The ninth position was shared by four candidates: Yuki Clarke, Charisma Etwaroo, and Salmah Bacchus, all from the Academy of Excellence, and Robert Forrester of the Winfer Gardens Primary School.

This year’s top NGSA achievers flanked by officials of the Ministry of Education.

The pupils were tested in four subjects namely: Mathematics, English, Science and Social Studies. The examination in each subject area consisted of two papers. They achieved the highest scores among the 14,032 candidates who wrote the assessment exams this year.
Paper One consisted of 40 multiple choice items while Paper Two consisted of essay type or open ended items.According to Dr. Hutson, the areas tested for each subject were: Mathematics— Knowledge, Algorithmic Thinking, Reasoning; Science– Knowledge, Comprehension, Application; Social Studies– Knowledge, Conceptual Understanding, Use of Knowledge and English Language–Reading, Comprehension and Vocabulary: Structure and Mechanics; Content, Focus, Vocabulary; Language and Organization.Giving a breakdown of the overall results based on the assessment, the CEO said that the pupils’ improved performances were recorded in English, Science and Social Studies while a marginal decline was recorded in Mathematics.
According to him, in 2020, 61.2% of the candidates secured 50% and more in English as against 57.4% in 2019.
He stressed that all administrative regions recorded improvements in the number of candidates securing 50% and more in English with Region 3 recording 63.4%, Region 6 – 57.5%, Region 10 – 71.9% and Georgetown – 78.9%.
A significant improvement was also noted in Social Studies with 53% of the candidates securing 50% and more in 2020 as against 39% in 2019.
“All administrative regions recorded improvements in this subject area. Region 7 moved from 21% recording 50% and more in 2019 to 30.8 % in 2020 and Region 5 recorded 49.2% in 2020 as against 33.7% in 2019.
Mathematics moved from 42% gaining 50% and more in 2019 to 39.4% in 2020. In Science 44.1% of the candidates gained 50% and more in 2020 as compared to 42.4% in 2019,” he added.
The CEO said that the attainment was a result of the Ministry of Education’s continued collaboration with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) to improve the quality of all national primary grade assessments.
“Teachers, subject specialists and test development officers developed the test items with the technical guidance of the Caribbean Examinations Council, addressing key areas such as item construction, weighting of items, sampling and other psychometric elements,” Dr. Hutson said.

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