Minister of Education Fayval Williams is today (July 8) announcing that 87 per cent of grade six students sitting the 2022 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examination were successfully placed at one of their seven schools of choice.

Williams, speaking at a press conference this morning, indicated that the figure represents 30,778 of the total 35,292 students who sat the 2022 PEP exam.

It is a noticeable fall-off from the 36,078 students who initially registered to sit PEP, as the ministry reported that 786 students, or roughly two per cent, were absent on examination days.

The minister further disclosed that based on personal requests, only 20 students were not placed in a public school.

The remaining 13 per cent, made of 4,494 students, will be placed in a secondary school either in “close proximity to” the originating primary school or near the child’s home address, where applicable.

“It must be noted that 100 per cent of our schools are now a ‘school of choice’—meaning, in prior years, there were high schools not chosen by any student—[but] as to be expected though, the demand for certain schools continues to be very high,” she advised.

The minister maintained that PEP, or rather the reporting of scores, reflects a new approach to greater align with the National Standards Curriculum’s competence-based transition policy and alternate pathways for secondary education.

Continuing, Williams said this thrust engages students in critical thinking, creative problem solving, effective communication and natural collaboration.

“The Primary Exit Profile aims to assess these skills and competencies as outlined by the National Standards Curriculum,” she explained.

Schools and parents will get individual PEP results based on a scaled score system, ranging from ‘beginning’ to ‘highly proficient’, which also doubles as the students’ placement score.

Williams indicated that the results take into consideration students only completing two of three grade six assessments—Ability Test in March and Curriculum-Based Test in April.

Results will be made public at around 4:00 pm today.

On a granular level, student achievement data from the ministry showed that more students were determined to be ‘proficient’ in Mathematics (45.9 per cent) and Language Arts (62.7 per cent) when compared to averages in Science (45.0 per cent) and Social Studies (41.9 per cent) where the majority is ranked at ‘developing’.