National Grade Six Assessment 2010
The results of the Ministry of Education’s National Grade Six Assessment 2010 are out, and in a keenly competitive and highly aggressive run for the top positions this time around, nineteen students from eleven schools demonstrated their mettle as top achievers from among the nation’s top 106.
Topping the national list of 16,351 students assessed was Sonia Ghir of Mae’s Under 12, gaining 555 marks from a maximum of 565. Following closely to take the second position was Tauhir Khan of Isa Islamic, East Street Georgetown, with 553 – two marks ahead of Victoria B. Najab of ABC Academy, who gained 551 marks.
Three Schools shared the fourth position with each of the candidates gaining 550 marks. Those were Shannon S. Woodroffe of School of the Nations; Marissa A. Scott of North Georgetown and Petunia C. Wood of  Winfer Gardens.  Jagindra Persaud of Suddie scored 549, while Paige J.L. Carter  and Michael K. Jagnanan– both of Mae’s Under 12, gained 548 and 547 marks respectively.  Three others, each gaining 547 were  Monique A. Hopkinson of Graham’s Hall, Stephon T. Hussain of West Ruimveldt and Sevanna A. Ferreiria of Leonora.
The remaining seven candidates from among the 19 top achievers each gained 546 marks. They are:  Crystal C. De Freitas and Annalisia Hopkinson, both of Leonora; three from West Ruimveldt – Keia A. Smith, Nayasha Baksh and Tamika A. Lawrence;  Nina A. Ramdeholl of ABC Academy, and Kadesh A. Daniels of Concord Academy.
Meanwhile, the others from among the top 106 students obtaining the top 1009marks were drawn from Georgetown and six other regions, namely:
*   Georgetown: (71 students from 17 schools)  –  Mae’s, Isa, ABC, School of Nations; North Georgetown, Winfer Gardens, Graham’s Hall, West Ruimveldt, New Guyana School, St. Margaret’s, Stella Maris, Dharmic Rama Krishna, Green Acres, Comenius, St. Agnes, Marian, and Concord Academy.
* Region Two: (four students from four schools):  Suddie, Sparta, CV Nunes and Taymouth Manor
* Region Four (ten students from nine schools): Lusignan, Annandale, Enterprise, Covent Garden, Peter’s Hall, Vryheid’s Lust, Grove, Cane Grove and Swami Puprnananda
* Region Five (one student from one school):  Novar
* Region Six (two students from two schools): St. Theresa’s and Port Mourant
* Region Nine (Three students from two schools): Aishalton and St. Ignatius.
Addressing a press conference at which he released the results yesterday, Minister of Education Sheik Baksh noted that of the 106 top performers, 39 were boys and 67 were girls. The Minister disclosed that girls performed better than boys in every subject and in every region. This year, 8,270 boys were assessed and 8,081 girls.
He noted that the schools that provided a significant number of candidates in the top 106 are St. Margaret’s (7); Leonora (8); New Guyana School (5) MES’s Under 12 (14), West Ruimveldt (11) and Graham’s Hall (7).  Forty one of the 106 best performers were drawn from private schools.
In terms of the overall performance in 2010, the Education Minister said pupils demonstrated best attainment in Mathematics, followed by Science. He expressed disappointment that the performance in English showed a drop of 0.62 from the 2009 mean score.
Meanwhile, in terms of regional performance, Georgetown was ranked at the top, followed by Region Ten. And while Regions One, Seven and Nine continue to be at the bottom of the regional performance , Region Eight was rated the poorest, the Minister disclosed.
Albeit, all the Regions have shown growth in 2010, relative to 2009,Baksh said.
Meanwhile, Minister Baksh assured that no child having been assessed would be denied full access to secondary education. “Every single child would be placed in a Secondary School or the secondary department of a Primary School,” he affirmed.
Successful students compete for places at five secondary schools. These are Queen’s College, Bishops’ High School, St. Stanislaus College, St. Rose’s High School and St. Joseph High School.
Places for these schools were won by 743 of the top performers and were distributed as follows:
* Queen’s College with a cut off score of 532  –   137 pupils were allocated
* Bishops’ High School           525 cut off          –   113 pupils allocated
* St. Stanislaus College           519 cut off          –   141 pupils
* St. Rose’s High School          511 cut off         –   220  pupils
* St. Joseph High School       507 cut off         –   132  pupils
Allocation of students to secondary schools is based on performance at the National Grade Six Assessments.  The assessments are done at Grade 2, Grade 4 and Grade 6.  At Grade 2 and Grade 4, the subjects for assessment are Reading, English and Mathematics. At Grade 6, the subjects are mathematics, English, Science and Social Studies.  The Grade 2, Grade 4 and Grade 6, scores for a pupil are combined to determine the pupil’s final aggregated score.  The scores are aggregated using 5 per cent of the standardized score for Grade 2, 10 per cent of the standardized score for Grade 4, and 85 per cent of the standardized score for Grade 6 in English and Mathematics, 100 % each of the Science and Social Studies standardized scores.