St Andrew East schools setting bar in academics
Published:Monday | May 5, 2025 | 12:07 AMMickalia Kington/Gleaner Writer
As principals from both primary and secondary schools presented compelling data, students’ results in the St Andrew East constituency revealed that their performances often surpass national averages.
A celebration of academic excellence and resilience echoed through the Jamaica College Auditorium during the Quality Education Circle (QEC) 11 town hall meeting on Friday.
A QEC is a grouping educational institutions at various levels – including early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary –based in a geographical area and that agree t0 work together with stakeholders to improve student outcomes.
With more than 3,500 students at the primary level alone, QEC 11 leaders, representing schools in St Andrew East, emphasised not just achievement, but transformation and inclusion, while laying out an ambitious vision for the future.
In her address, Nicole Thomson, principal of New Providence Primary School, shared a detailed breakdown of QEC 11 students’ performance across grades four to six at seven primary and preparatory schools who took the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) exam.
She reported that, out of the 3,502 primary-level students, with 49 per cent of them being girls and 51 per cent being boys, nearly half exceeded academic expectations.
“We have 43 per cent of our students being proficient or highly proficient. Now, when you look at that against the national level, the national level is 39 per cent. So the QEC is above our national level. For our last year, we have 56 per cent of our students that are proficient or highly proficient and that is compared to 45 per cent at the national level.
In literacy and numeracy, QEC 11 students also showed significant outperformance.
“Seventy per cent of our students at the primary level have obtained mastery for the boys and it is 79 per cent for the girls,” she said of literacy. Numeracy results were equally promising, with “78 per cent of our boys are at the mastery level compared to 64 per cent at the national level and 80 per cent of our girls have received mastery at the grade four numeracy test”.
As students advanced through grades, the upward trend continued.
“For language arts, we are at 63 per cent versus the national level 58 per cent and 81 per cent of our girls are proficient or highly proficient at grade five language arts,” Thomson shared.
Students showed readiness
At grade six, the QEC 11 results were even more impressive.
“Language arts, 70 per cent of our boys attain proficient or highly proficient ... and for the girls it is 82 per cent versus a national level of 76 per cent,” she explained. In science, 81 per cent of students were proficient or highly proficient, compared to 63 per cent nationally.
Thomson noted confidently that students showed readiness.
“Seventy per cent of our student’s matriculate into pathway one for boys … and 80 per cent for girls. I think that is a very, very good performance because most of our students are pathway-one students.”
Following Thomson was Kevon Jones, principal of Mona High School, who presented results from the secondary level. Jones contextualised the achievements, noting the students’ difficult journey during the pandemic.
“The students who sat the CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) exams in 2024 actually entered high school in September of 2019 … by March 2020, we had the onset of COVID-19.”
Despite years of online learning and disrupted education, students emerged strong.
“We must celebrate because these were the students who were faced with a tremendous disadvantage at the beginning of grade seven,” Jones said.
English A saw a 76-per-cent pass rate. Other notable results included Food, Nutrition and Health at 89 per cent, Family Resource Management, 86 per cent … Visual Arts, 84 per cent. Physical Education and Sports, 95 per cent. Industrial Technology, that’s Building Technology, 97 per cent.
“Mathematics,” he admitted, “is 41 per cent,” but still significantly better than the national average of 33 per cent. Across the board, QEC students showed solid performance in a wide range of subjects, from religious education (65 per cent) to human and social siology (94 per cent).
“These very same students ... have pulled through,” Jones emphasised. “We have a number of them in school now and we wish them all the best.”
Wrapping up the session, Alex Hepburn, chairman of QEC 11, commended the group of schools for outperforming the rest of the country, according to the data.
Three key pillars
Hepburn revealed the QEC 11’s strategic focus on three key pillars which are educator empowerment, TPET integration, and school infrastructure improvement.
“We are focusing on pushing our children forward,” he said. “Transformation has to be radical. If it’s not radical, it’s not transformation.”
Highlighting the region’s commitment to inclusivity, he noted, “We have the highest number of schools that are considered to be special schools. And that is because we are special. Because we cater to or cater for the needs of every single child.”
The QEC will soon pilot intervention programmes for special needs students, establish a regional assessment committee, and host quarterly collaboration meetings.
“We cannot have some schools doing well in the QEC while others are struggling,” he stressed. “So the goals that we are going to set will be based on sharing with each other so that all our schools can excel.”
He also emphasised the need for ongoing teacher development.
“You cannot expect to leave college 10 years ago and never want to do professional development.”
Looking ahead, Hepburn outlined goals around improving attendance, literacy, and curriculum alignment.
“By next year, we expect to have every school in this community at least 90 per cent [in attendance]. Now, we want to ensure curriculum continuity and alignment. So we are going to align key areas such as reading programmes. The ministry has indicated that we are no longer going to teach reading at the primary level as in our case, we are disintegrating. So we are moving along with the ministry to ensure that our children, by the end of grade three, I would say, are competent readers,” he stated.
Hepburn encouraged QEC 11 to go forward with unity, vision, and a commitment to excellence, as the QEC 11 leaders emphasised that the journey going forward is inclusive and will be driven by data. He declared that QEC 11 is ready to lead the nation.
In the meantime, Reverend Dr Paul Smith spoke about the importance of working together in education. He reminded those in attendance that no one knows everything, and that everyone has something to offer.
“It is teamwork. It’s no longer me, myself, and I. It’s all of us,” he said.