The first sitting of Portuguese as a subject offered for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has shown tremendous promise. While the number of candidate entries was small, 65, the performance was above average. Eighty-three per cent of candidates achieved Grades I-III, the acceptable grades at CSEC.

Twenty-two per cent of entries achieved Grade I, while 32 per cent achieved Grade II and 27 per cent achieved Grade III.

While Portuguese was the only new subject offered at the May/June 2017 CSEC sitting, several subjects with amended names were offered for the first time this year under their new names. Clothing and Textiles is now Textiles, Clothing and Fashion. Seventy-five per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades, with more than half, 44 per cent gaining Grade III; 27 per cent achieved Grade II and three per cent achieved Grade I.

The subject that was formerly Food and Nutrition was renamed Food, Nutrition and Health and offered for the first time under its new name this year. Ninety-one per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades with 15 per cent achieving Grade I, 45 per cent Grade II and 30 per cent Grade III.

Family and Resource Management is the new name for Home Economics Management. At its first sitting under the new name, 87 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades. The largest percentage of those grades were in the Grade II band, 44 per cent. Thirty-seven per cent achieved Grade III and five per cent achieved Grade I.

Industrial Technology now has three Options: Industrial – Technology Electrical, Industrial Technology –  Mechanical, and Industrial Technology – Building. Performance on all three subjects was satisfactory. Seventy-four per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades for Electrical, 76 per cent for Mechanical and 81 per cent for Building.

Entries

The candidate entries continue its downward trend again this year with 129, 558 candidates registering for CSEC examinations, compared with 132, 674 in 2016 and 132,824 in 2015. Notwithstanding the drop in candidate entries, there was a marginal increase in subject entries, up from 573, 802 last year to 577,982 entries this year.

Mathematics has the largest subject entries with 91,328, followed by English A with 87,005, Social Studies is in third largest subject with 45,683, followed by Principles of Business with 33,500 and Human and Social Biology with 28, 413 entries round off the top five largest subjects.

Thirty-three subjects were offered at the May/June 2017 sitting of the CSEC examination in both General and Technical Proficiencies.