QC boy emerges as Guyana’s top CAPE performer

Aug 25, 2023 News

---

Kaieteur News – Naresh Jagnanan of Queen’s College on Wednesday emerged as the top performing Guyanese candidate who sat the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) this year.

Jagnanan secured the top spot having secured nine Grade Ones and One Grade two in 10 subjects.

He was named among the top students by the Ministry of Education when a team led by Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand travelled to the Anna Regina Secondary School in Region Two to announce the preliminary list of top performers for this year’s Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) and CAPE results.

Along with Jagnanan, Joshua Gulab of Queen’s College who wrote 17 subjects, securing eight Grade Ones, four Grade Twos and two Grade Threes came in 2^nd place.

Cleon Jardine of St Stanislaus College secured the third spot with an overall pass in nine subject areas. His passes include seven Grade Ones and one Grade Tw0.

Diyva Nandlall of Queen’s College holds the fourth spot with seven Grade Ones and one Grade Two and  Zayden Ramotar of Queen’s College secured 10 subjects including six Grade Ones and four Grade twos.

Speaking to the media following the announcement of the top students by the Ministry at the Anna Regina Secondary School in Region Two, Ramotar expressed contentment with his results. He told reporters that now that CAPE is over, he will be taking a break and would later embark on pursuing a career in the science field.

“I am thinking about going into engineering or something like that,” Ramotar said. Ramotar and the other four top performers are among the 701 students who sat the advanced level exams this year.

Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain in an address to students and teachers at the auditorium of the Anna Regina Secondary School said that the figure represents an increase in number of CAPE candidates for Guyana.

“The Ministry is pleased to announce that there was an increase in the number of Guyanese candidates who wrote CAPE… from 671 in 2022 to 701 in 2023,” he said.

According to CEO, the candidates were offered units in 21 subject areas.  He explained that “Each unit comprises of three modules and each module is 150 hours. The results for CAPE are reported on a seven point scale if you got Grades one to five you attained an acceptable pass.”

Although the performances by the CAPE candidates were good, Hussain pointed out that there was a slight dip in the overall past rate in CAPE this year. Guyana recorded a 90.85 percent pass rate representing a two percent decline from 2022.

He said, “Candidates received  a 100 percent past rates  in 12 units; Accounting Unit Two, Applied Math Unit Two, Building And Mechanical Engineering Unit One And Two, Food And Nutrition Unit Two, Geography Unit Two, Green Engineering Unit Two, Physical Education Unit, Physical Education And Sports Unit One And Two Physics, Spanish Two.”

The CEO noted that the Ministry recorded a 75 percent pass rate in the forty units offered.

Hussain said, “Improved Performance Offered in Accounting Unit One went from 80 percent to 90 percent, Agriculture Science from 76 percent to 91 percent, Applied Mathematics from 88 percent to 100 percent, Economics From 81 percent to 90 percent, Electronic And Electrical Technology from 80 percent to 85 percent, Geography From 95 percent To 100 percent, Pure Mathematics from 65 percent to 88 percent; Pure Mathematics Unit Two from 80 percent to 87 percent in 2023, Chemistry from 86 percent to 88 Percent… Literatures and English from 95 to 97 Percent in 2023.”

He noted too that Caribbean Studies and Communications Studies which are compulsory subjects at CAPE both accounted for in excess of 90 percent of the pass rate.

Hussain explained that, “There was stable performance in Geography Unit Two, Law Unit One Management of Business Unit One, Physics Unit Two, Spanish Unit Two, Physical Education and Sports Unit one and  Two  Building and Mechanical Engineering Unit One  and Green Engineering Unit Two.”

Meanwhile, the CEO listed the subjects which saw a decline as Biology Unit One which moved from 92 to 87 percent,  Biology Unit two moved 97 to 92 percent performances Environmental Science Unit One moved from 100 percent to 97 percent.

“For Unit Two, Information Technology dropped from 100 percent to 96 percent, Information Technology Unit One moved from 96 percent to 92 percent. Sociology declined from 100 percent to 95 percent for Tourism moved from 100 percent to 92.59 percent

Overall, Hussain said there were significant improvements in more than 10 subjects; stable performance in more than 10 and a slight reduction in six subject areas.

---

• Guyanese, Naresh Jagnanan, performer, securing, subjects

---