Performance in the 2015 January sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC)

examination continued the up-ward trend seen over the last two years. This year, 58 per cent of subject

entries achieved acceptable grades, that is Grades I – III, compared with 50 per cent in 2014 and 49 per

cent in 2013.

Of the 13 subjects offered at the January 2015 sitting, performance improved on 11 subjects and declined

on two subjects.

Mathematics, the largest subject taken at this sitting recorded substantially improved performance this

year, with 65 per cent of the nine thousand subject entries achieving acceptable grades. Fifteen per cent

of the entries achieved Grade I; sixteen per cent achieved Grade II and 32 per cent achieved Grade III.

Performance on both English A and English B continue to improve when compared to last year. This

year, 55 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades in English A, compared with 51 per cent last year.

There was a ten per cent improvement in performance in English B. Seventy-one per cent of subject

entries achieved acceptable grades this year compared with 61 per cent last year. Over fifty per cent of the

entries achieved at the higher grade bands, Grades I and II; 20 per cent achieved Grade I, 30 per cent

achieved Grade II and 20 per cent achieved Grade III.

In the business cluster, Principles of Accounts (POA) and Principles of Business (POB) recorded

improved performance when compared with 2014. For POA, 59 per cent of subject entries achieved

acceptable grades compared with 53 per cent in 2014, while for POB, 75 per cent achieved similar grades,

compared with 71 per cent in 2014. The other business subject, Office Administration was one of the two

subjects with a decline in performance this year. Fifty-two per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades

this year compared with 76 per cent in 2014.

Of the four science subjects offered at the January sitting, three recorded improved performance while

performance declined on one. Sixty-one per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades for Biology

compared with 53 per cent in 2014; forty-six per cent achieved acceptable grades in Chemistry compared

with 37 per cent in 2014, and 57 per cent achieved acceptable grades in Physics compared with 49 per

cent last year. Performance on Human and Social Biology continues to decline with 27 per cent of entries

achieving acceptable grades this year compared with 34 per cent last year.

There was a 12 per cent improvement in performance in Information Technology this year when

compared with performance in 2014. This year 62 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades

compared with 50 per cent in 2014.

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Spanish and Social Studies had moderate improvement in performance when compared with 2014. For

Spanish, 71 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades compared with 67 per cent in 2014, while for

Social Studies 54 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades compared with 47 per cent in 2014.

This year, 16, 689 candidates wrote the January sitting and they submitted 40, 938 subject entries.

Entire Sitting E-marked

For the first time in its history, CXC used electronic marking (e-marking) to mark all the scripts

submitted in an examination sitting. All papers in the 13 subjects were e-marked by just over 600 markers

in this year’s January sitting. This is to set the stage for the eventual move to full e-marking by 2017

when most of the CSEC and CAPE subjects will be e-marked.

During the 2015 May/June sitting, 18 CSEC subjects and 12 CAPE Units will be e-marked.

“The January sitting is relatively small and CXC felt that e-marking the entire sitting would provide some

good insights into what is to be expected in May/June when we would have more subjects and more e-

markers,” stated Mr Glenroy Cumberbatch, CXC Registrar. “As we plan for the May/June sitting, we will

implement the lessons learnt from this exercise and adjust our plans and strategies before we roll out e-

marking to other subjects in the coming years.”