Mae’s, Dharmic Rama Krishna boys top NGSA

By Ravin Singh
ANTHONY Ferreira of Mae’s Under 12 School and Aryan Singh of Dharmic Rama Krishna School gained the top places at this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), both having scored the highest marks of the 14,386 pupils who wrote the examinations.The duo each scored 568 marks — 15 marks short of a perfect score — to jointly share the top spot at this year’s NGSA. Third position was gained by Sarena Razak of Graham’s Hall Primary, who obtained 565 marks; while fourth position was gained by Chelsea Barnes of Success Elementary, who gained 563 marks.

Securing fifth position was Arun Sooknarine of Dharmic Rama Krishna with 562 marks; and Helia Agrad of Success Elementary gained the sixth position with 561 marks. Seventh position was shared by five candidates, namely: Indie Rampersaud of Success Elementary, Justin Seecharan of Success Elementary, Jonathan Ganga of Leonora Primary, Divya Nandalall of Mae’s Under 12, and Lemuel Assing of New Guyana School.

The top 10 candidates will each be awarded a place at Queen’s College; along with those who achieved 541 marks or above. Those who received between 531 and 540 will be awarded a place at the Bishops’ High School, while those scoring between 522 and 530 will earn a spot at St. Stanislaus College.

Students who scored between 516 and 521 marks will be awarded places at St. Rose’s High School, and those who gained between 508 and 516 marks will be awarded places at St. Joseph High.

And while President’s College remains one of the ‘A’ schools in Region Four, only non-residential places will be awarded to candidates from Region Four who are living between Mahaica and Cummings Lodge and have attained a minimum score of 493 marks. However, residential places will be offered to candidates from regions One, Two, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten who have attained scores of 493 marks and above.

It was revealed that a total of 225 candidates from schools in these regions are eligible for entry into the school.

Tabulations for this year’s NGSA, which were written on the 27th and 28th of April, did not include the grades Two and Four assessment results of these students, as had obtained in previous years.

Education Minister Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, who said at a press conference on Tuesday that his Ministry has commenced collaboration with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) to improve the quality of all primary grade assessments, made this disclosure. He explained that the objective of this consultation is to ensure that all assessments conform to regional and international test development and administration standards and expectations, to facilitate consistent, reliable measurement and tracking of pupil performance.

He noted that teachers, subject specialists and test development officers from Guyana developed all items for the 2016 NGSA, with the technical guidance of CXC. These, according to him, addressed key areas, such as item construction, weighting of items, sampling, and other psychometric elements.

Areas tested for each subject were as follows: For Mathematics — knowledge, algorithmic thinking and reasoning; for Science — knowledge, comprehension and application; for Social Studies –knowledge, conceptual understanding and use of knowledge; and for English Language — reading, comprehension and vocabulary; structure and mechanics; content, focus, vocabulary, language and organisation.

Regarding the overall subject performance, Minister Roopnaraine revealed that the performances in English Language and Social Studies has been consistent with what obtained in previous years. He noted, however, that the 2016 results regarding Mathematics and Science have fallen below those of previous years. Though statistics were not provided by the minister, he noted that the analysis is currently being conducted to ascertain the specific areas in which pupils experienced the greatest difficulty.

“The Ministry of Education has made concerted efforts to include items that would stimulate critical and higher-level thinking. The analysis of the 2016 assessment results will have deep implications for the instructional approaches adopted by teachers going forward,” Dr. Roopnaraine said.

He also noted that the practices of drilling and teaching to the test, which had been adopted over the years, will do little to benefit pupils in this new dispensation, and work will be continued throughout the system to ensure that teachers focus on fully teaching the appropriate concepts and raising pupils’ competence levels, rather than employing the antiquated traditional approaches.

The 2016 NGSA results will be available online from 5 pm this evening. Parents and students are advised to log onto the Ministry of Education website: education.gov.gy. The candidate’s timetable will provide the necessary information to access these results.