Minister of Education and Youth, Hon. Fayval Williams, is projecting that the performance of Jamaican students in Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Mathematics will return to pre-pandemic levels next year.

Only 39 per cent of students received a passing grade in the May/June 2024 sitting.

“That’s a very low number. It was low in the Caribbean as well, and as we look across the globe, we are seeing other countries bemoan their maths results as well. Not an excuse, but we are still recovering from COVID,” she said.

Minister Williams was delivering the keynote address during Thursday’s (September 26) Rotary Club of Kingston luncheon meeting, held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, under the theme ‘Basic Education and Literacy’.

She pointed out that the students who recently sat CSEC were the cohort that missed face-to-face teaching in grades seven and eight.

“We have hope, though, because when we look at the results pre-pandemic, in 2019, 54 per cent of the students then passed mathematics. We are targeting to get back to that level by next year and then work on taking it even higher,” she said.

Minister Williams said education is a sector on which all Jamaicans are depending to carry the nation forward, and the Ministry is committed to making improvements by implementing the 365 recommendations of the Jamaica Education Transformation Commission.

“If we significantly improve the educational outcomes from the system, our future will be significantly brighter because of the quality of jobs that we will be able to attract in Jamaica,” she stated.