GUYANESE students at both the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) continue to excel.
This is indeed a positive development, especially at a time of unprecedented economic and technological advances in the country. An educated and skilled labour force is a sine qua non for accelerated growth and development and such improved levels of academic proficiencies cannot come at a better time in the country’s developmental history.

Experience throughout the world have shown that there is a positive correlation between educational advancement and economic development. This is particularly true of countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan which are collectively referred to as the ‘Asian Tigers.’
Despite a number of constraints caused by recent industrial action, the overall performance of our students is nothing short of impressive.
Based on preliminary results released by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), the results for the region as a whole were ‘mixed’, both at the CSEC and the CAPE examinations, especially in the two critical subject areas of Language Arts and Mathematics. Despite a marginal decline in passes in Mathematics, Guyanese students still performed ahead of their regional counterparts.

There was a time under the previous PNC administration when our students were underperforming relative to other Caribbean countries.
Indeed, we were at the bottom of the performance ladder due mainly to a combination of severe underfunding of the sector and high levels of mismanagement.  The records will show that the overall pass rate was below 50%. Compare that to today with an overall pass rate of 67.23 per-cent at the CSEC and 92.57 at the CAPE examinations!

This years’ performance at the CSEC examinations has demonstrated some positive indicators. Firstly, the trend is one of enhanced performance of schools throughout the country, especially those in rural and hinterland communities.
And even though there are challenges to the delivery of quality education in hinterland regions due to decades of neglect by the previous PNC administration, the performance gap between coastal and hinterland schools is gradually closing, thanks to a number of policy interventions by the Ministry of Education, such as teacher-training, availability of learning resources, enhanced learning environment and cash grants to parents of children attending schools.

Another significant development has been an increasing number of students who sit the CSEC examinations due to the conversion of community high schools and primary tops to discrete secondary schools.
Under the Secondary School Reform Programme (SSRP) several interventions were made to better prepare students to write the CSEC examinations, with impressive results. Under that programme initiated under the PPP/C administration, secondary school education is now almost universal, a remarkable development given the fact that under the PNC regime less than half of post-primary students were provided with an opportunity to write the CSEC examinations.

Special mention should be made for the excellent results obtained by the Anna Regina Multilateral School for consistently gaining the top spots in the CSEC examinations. The school has, on multiple occasions, won the top national awards and also copped the overall Best in the entire Caribbean.
Without a doubt, investment in education is paying dividends for which the PPP/C administration must be commended.