Prime Minister Andrew Holness has declared that Jamaica “cannot develop” socially and economically without its students performing better in mathematics.
Holness was weighing into the ongoing national discussion relative to the numerical subject, this after only 38.9 per cent of Jamaican public school students passed the 2024 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) mathematics examination.
However, an analysis of the all-Jamaican mathematics pass rate, meaning public, private and other schools combined, shows that 33.4 per cent of students passed the subject.
In commenting on the issues at the annual Primary Exit Profile (PEP) Awards Ceremony at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) on Thursday, Holness admitted that the results for mathematics were concerning.
“When I had an opportunity just a few days ago to review the results at the CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) exams, and to see the level of passes of mathematics, it is of great concern to me,” he said.
The prime minister said the results are not just a social problem, as it also has an impact on the country’s economic development.
“The country cannot develop without us doing better at the mathematics,” Holness declared.
He pointed out that the jobs that are paying better, as well as the jobs that the country needs to attract, “involve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)”.
On that score, Holness pointed to the Government’s push to construct six STEM schools across the country as one of the solutions to curbing the low pass rate in mathematics.
“We will be building six STEM schools that is in the process now of being planned, and financing is being put in place to do that, but these schools will not be run under the current education system in terms of the Education Act in how those schools are going to be run,” he said.
“We will develop a new scheme of managing those schools because, for us, it is a strategically important programme.
“We need to create very quickly, very rapidly, with guarantees, a generation of Jamaicans who are highly trained in STEM; this is a national priority,” Holness indicated.
In expounding on that point, the prime minister disclosed that changes must be implemented to improve the skills of students nationally.
“The reality is we can’t continue to do psychology and social work, and this and that, and the other. We need more people in science, we need more people in mathematics,” Holness stressed.
Opposition Spokesperson on Education, Senator Damion Crawford, blamed this year’s poor CSEC mathematics performances on ‘failure of’ the Education and Youth Ministry to implement “remedial effort” for the cohort of students who sat the exams.
He said based on his own analysis, the students had poor numeracy rates at the primary level, as seen from their performances in the 2017 Grade Four Numeracy Test and the PEP mathematics exams two years later.
Education and Youth Minister Fayval Williams has given the ministry’s commitment to redoubling its efforts and having an emergency plan for mathematics.
