Saint Lucian students scored a 100% pass rate in Agricultural Science at the recent CSEC (CXC) exams after the subject faced some uncertainty earlier this year.
The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) had previously announced that Agricultural Science (Double Award) would be one of four subjects it would discontinue this year due to low enrollment.
However, there was a reversal following a meeting with education ministers across the region.
It has also been revealed that Saint Lucian students scored 100% CSEC pass rates in Religious Education and Industrial Technology Mechanical.
Carmelita Matthew, Registrar of Examinations at the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, presented an analysis of the performance of candidates at the 2024 Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examination (CAPE) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC).
In the instance of CAPE, 312 candidates wrote 24 subjects, achieving an overall pass rate of 96.56%, with ten subjects obtaining 100% pass in both units one and two and among both genders.
The subjects included Environmental Science, French, Geography, Green Engineering, Information Technology, Management of Business, Physics, Sociology, Spanish and Digital Media.
For CSEC, 2499 candidates sat 33 subjects at the General and Technical proficiency levels.
The pass rates for the individual subjects ranged from 43.56% to 100 % – with Mathematics registering the lowest.
While Agricultural Science double award, Industrial Technology Mechanical and Religious Education all recorded 100% pass rate, twenty-seven subjects obtained a pass rate of 70%.
Fifteen out of the thirty-three subjects recorded an increase in performance, whereas sixteen subjects recorded a decrease.
French recorded the highest increase of 11.1%, whereas English A and Mathematics recorded gains of 1.08% and 1.06% respectively.
According to the Registrar of Examinations, the island’s overall performance was 75.3%, marking an increase of 2.42% in the overall performance of candidates in 2023.
“It must be noted that Saint Lucia’s overall performance and also overall performances in Mathematics and English A are higher than that of the region,” Matthew said.
She pointed out that the region’s overall performance was 69%, while Saint Lucia’s was 75%.
Females also dominated the exams while males outperformed in five subjects- Biology, Geography, Music, Principles of Business, Music and Spanish.
“Generally Saint Lucia has demonstrated a reasonable performance in the CXC examination, but much more is desired from candidates in order to improve on their personal performance, school performance and the nation as a whole,” Matthew expressed.
