GSAT Results Available June 9

For the first time in five years, boys outperformed girls in Language Arts in this year’s sitting of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT).

The boys recorded a higher mean score of 76.7 per cent, compared to the girls’ mark of 68.5 per cent.

This was disclosed by Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, during a press conference at his Heroes Circle offices in Kingston today (June 8) to announce  results of the GSAT, which will be available June 9.

The Minister pointed out that this notable difference in scores of 8.2 per cent has broken the trend of girls outperforming boys in all subject areas.

He informed, however, that the females continued to perform well in the other subject areas, noting that they had higher percentages than the males for the other four tests, which ranged from 4.1 per cent in Science, to 7.1 per cent in Communication Task.

In the meantime, Senator Reid informed that the overall performance of students has improved in four of the five areas tested.

An average increase of four per cent was recorded in the scores for Mathematics, Language Arts and Communication Task, compared to last year. There was also a 1.7 per cent improvement in the score for Social Studies, while students’ performance in Science declined by 4.5 per cent.

The Minister informed that the significant improvement in the overall results was due to the various strategies that have been implemented by the Ministry. These include the deployment of literacy specialists and maths coaches to schools, and increasing the number of workshops and mock exams which were used to assess and address the weaknesses of students.

A total of 39,729 students registered to sit the exam on March 16 and 17. Of this number, 38,208 students took the test in its entirety, while 1,521 candidates were absent for varying components of the GSAT.

The test results will be available to schools online tomorrow (June 9), which is one week earlier than the Ministry’s usual publication of the third week in June.

Once they have registered online, all schools will be able to access the results at 12:01 a.m. Those without online access can pick up the results by 12 noon at the respective Regional Offices.

Article by: Alecia Smith
Photo from: www.jis.gov.jm