CSS students attain 81 percent pass rate in CAPE 2012 exams

Minister of Education, Sen. the Hon. Nigel Carty

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, AUGUST 23RD 2012 (CUOPM) – Students in the sixth form of the Charlestown Secondary School attained an overall pass rate for the 2012 CAPE examinations of 81.5% compared to 74.2% in 2011.

This was disclosed by the Federation’s Minister of Education, Sen. the Hon. Nigel Carty, who pointed out that a total of 138 candidates were registered for 564 subject entries.

“The number of candidates writing the CAPE exams at the CSS held steady over the past two years but slightly lower than the 143 candidates entering in 2010, but the number is still significantly above the 2008 figure of 107 candidates. Of the total entries, 63.8% were Unit 1 entries while 36.2% were unit 2 entries,” said Minister Carty, pointing out that the variance between the number of Unit 1 and Unit 2 courses decreased from 56% in 2011 to 27.6% in 2012.

“This is a very positive development as it reflects greater participation in the Unit 2 courses and perhaps fewer repetitions of Unit 1 courses,” he said.

Of the 564 subjects entries registered for CAPE at the CSS, 537 returned graded results.

Popularly taken Unit 1 subjects were Accounting, Biology, Caribbean Studies, Communication Studies, Economics and Information Technology. On the other hand, at Unit 2, the popular subjects were Biology, Economics, Information Technology, Management of Business and Sociology.

“100% pass rate was attained in Accounting, Communication Studies and Spanish, where as at Unit 2, Chemistry, French, Pure Mathematics and Spanish similarly achieved a 100% pass rate. A pass rate below 50% was recorded Sociology Unit 1 only,” said Minister Carty.