Jamaica is constantly faced with the challenge of battling illiteracy and innumeracy in and outside the classroom. Despite the CXC website stating that there has been an improvement in English language passes from 56 per cent in 2009 to 66 per cent in 2010 among Caribbean students, this still does not confirm that there is an improvement in Jamaican student's English language grades.

The possibility exists that our performance in core subject areas might have actually got worse. According to renowned educator, Dr Ralph Thompson, on the matter of numeracy, 39,155 students sat CSEC mathematics in 2008 and only 20.7 per cent passed. This, however, was a vast improvement from the previous year which had a pass percentage of 16.5 per cent! His main argument is that the figures released do not represent the entire cohort of persons who sit the exam, only high school students. Students who sit the exams privately are usually left out of the tally, giving a figure that may misguide persons about our country's performance.

Possible Solution

While these statistics indicate the low pass rate in core subjects, the reason behind these dismal results is yet to be provided. However, if we are to believe that we have an illiteracy issue in Jamaica, then that would perhaps explain CSEC statistics in mathematics and English language. While mathematics is a numerical subject, students often forget that a good grasp of the skills of reading and comprehension is necessary to decipher what the question is asking. This is also very intrinsic to English language.

The solution then, in increasing students' performance in the core subjects - mathematics and English, should be addressed not only as a student-orientated issue, but also an issue for our educational professionals. While attempting to make sure our students acquire good reading ability, teachers must take the time out to implement new teaching strategies. For example, making lessons more visually oriented. I also implore the government to address our student-teacher ratio. If one teacher is teaching 45 students, it is impossible for them to identify and effectively deal with learning difficulties in everyone.

Despite access to this preliminary report, there cannot be any fair assessment until we are presented with a thorough report on Jamaican students' performance. For example, how well did Jamaican students perform in both English language and mathematics? Also, will these figures only represent high school students or will they include those who sat the exams privately?

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