PM sets scholarship goal for College students

So enthused is he with the 2007 May/June Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) preliminary results, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, is promising up to 10 national scholarships for Community College students: this, if they are able to match their achievements from the Cambridge International examinations with those of CAPE.{{more}}

The prime minister is immediately offering to increase the national scholarships to eight, up from six last year. However, if the students score excellent results, he has promised that his administration will be left with no other choice than to reward them.

Dr. Gonsalves made this promise at Cabinet Room in Kingstown, on Monday, August 13, during a press conference. “We have to reward our students when they come up to the mark…I told them repeatedly, I say to the students you do well, we will give you more scholarships,” said Dr. Gonsalves.

The best results in the CAPE were returned by students of Communication Studies. Of the 451 who sat the exam, 445 were successful.

This year also saw a marked improvement in the areas of French Unit 1, Spanish Unit 1 and Math Unit 1, while outstanding performances were recorded in French Unit 2 and Spanish Unit 2: all 15 candidates who wrote the French Unit 2 exam were successful and in Spanish Unit 2, an 80 per cent pass rate was achieved by the eight students who entered it.

Sixty-one students wrote the Pure Math Unit 1 scoring a 57 per cent pass rate, 30 students entered Pure Math Unit 2 resulting in a 75 per cent pass rate, 13 students sat the French Unit 1 achieving a 72 per cent pass rate, while 15 students wrote the Spanish Unit 1 examinations scoring 71 per cent passes.

One student wrote the Caribbean Studies examination and was successful.

For 2007 there was a candidate entry of 561, all were drawn from the Community College.

A release from the Ministry of Education said that the quality of the results this year also shows a marked improvement over those of previous years. In 2007, 53 per cent of the subjects were awarded grades one to three. This compares with 45 per cent in 2006 and 33 per cent in 2005.

The Ministry of Education hails this year’s results as a significant improvement over those of 2006 and 2005. In 2005 the pass rate was 73 per cent, in 2006 it was 69 per cent and in 2007 there was a 20 per cent increase over that of 2006, with 89 per cent of all subjects entered earning passes.

Cambridge International is expected to release the A-Level results next week. These results, together with those from CAPE will be used to determine the St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ National Scholars. The CXC CSEC results are also expected to be released next week. (HN)