More Than 70% of GSAT Students Placed in Schools of Choice

More than 70 per cent of students, who sat the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) in March 2014, have been placed in the schools of their choice.

Minister of Education, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites, has pointed out that 28,883 of the 39,438 students have been placed in their preferred schools.

The Minister was speaking at a press briefing, held at the Ministry’s Heroes Circle offices on June 17, to release the preliminary results of the Grade Six Achievement Test.

Of the 39,438 students who sat the examination, 34,804 were placed in High Schools; 3,291 in Technical schools; 1,002 in Junior High Schools; 13 in Special Schools; and 428 students in schools in proximity to the address they submitted.

“Our experience is that while there is heroic effort and exemplary success in some of the Junior High Schools, by and large they have not shown the capacity to deliver the best results and so we have been trying hard to place as many students, without overcrowding any school into the five-year programme. So, that is the reason for the reduction in the numbers going into Junior High Schools,” Rev. Thwaites said.

The 2014 results showed that Social Studies and Language Arts had a 63 per cent pass rate. For Mathematics there was a decline to 60 per cent, down from the 2013 result of 61 per cent; while Science had a 68 per cent pass rate and Communication Task a 72 per cent pass rate.

Rev. Thwaites said that while the 2014 GSAT results showed improvement in most subject areas, “the upward movement is not sharp enough at all to meet national needs.”

“It is for this reason that the Ministry is readjusting its budget internally to afford significantly increased capacity both in literacy assistance and in Mathematics coaching in the primary school. We are devoting this particularly to the weaker schools, since we need to make very significant sharp advances, especially in English and Mathematics,” the Minister said.

The GSAT results will be made available to all Primary Schools on Thursday, June 19, 2014.

School administrators are being reminded that transfers may be requested two weeks after release of the GSAT results, and that in accordance with the Code of Regulation 1980, the Minister must give approval for all transfers where necessary.

The GSAT was administered on March 20 and 21, 2014. The examination was conducted in over 1,000 schools and 40,846 students were eligible to sit the examination.