Minister of Education, Youth, and Information, Hon. Fayval Williams,` says the Ministry will be engaging specialist teachers under the National School Learning and Intervention Plan (NSLIP) to improve academic readiness.

“[This is] to address the performance gaps, especially in the areas of numeracy and literacy, augmented by our specialist teacher model to address the foundational principles and improve [the] readiness of our students to pursue the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) syllabi,” she said.

A total of 158 primary schools and 72 secondary schools are expected to benefit from the intervention.

“Currently, we have assigned a team of 83 persons –. 50 primary math coaches, 19 secondary math coaches and 14 math specialists, who will continue to provide support remotely and physically,” she said.

Minister Williams was speaking at a virtual press briefing held today (October 19), where she shared the preliminary results of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC).

She said that despite the challenges of the pandemic, students performed satisfactorily for all subject areas except mathematics.

“In mathematics, the subject with the greatest weakness, 38.2 per cent of students had passes of Grades One, Two and Three in 2021 compared with 61.2 per cent in 2020 [and] 54.6 per cent in 2019,” she disclosed.

She said that interventions, such as the NSLIP, will help in the “recovery that is needed in the knowledge base of our children”.

“We have high hurdles to clear this academic year, but we are working to ensure that our students are not stymied in the pursuit of their education and career goals,” she said.

The NSLIP is aimed at helping students to recover from learning loss due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

It includes interventions over the summer period and during the academic year.