Over 5,600 primary school students countrywide sat the first paper of the Primary School Examination (PSE) on Monday April 7th. Developed and prepared through the Ministry of Education, the PSE tests the students’ knowledge and skills in four areas, Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science. The exams are taken on two different dates, with the first date entailing English and Science.
Amongst the thousands of students that sat the exams, there were 238 from Caye Caulker Village and San Pedro Town. 92 students were from the San Pedro Roman Catholic School, 45 from New Horizon Seventh Day Adventist, 34 from Holy Cross Anglican School, 31 from Caye Caulker Roman Catholic School, 15 from La Isla Bonita Elementary School, 11 from The Island Academy, eight from Ambergris Caye Elementary School and two private candidates. The examination center for both islands is the San Pedro High School.
According to Lisa Clare, Itinerant Resource Officer at the Exams Unit of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the exams test the students in various areas from material learned during eight years at primary school. “In the multiple choice for English, we look at mechanics and comprehension, and in the mechanics section we look at grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. For comprehension, we look at literal comprehension, insightful, inferential and critical comprehension and [in] science we look at concepts and process skills.”
On the first day of the examination, only one student was absent for the test on Ambergris Caye. In addition, several parents wanted to be with their children during lunch break. The Ministry of Education would like to take the opportunity to remind education stakeholders, that under page nine of the protocol for examinations Section C-1, under the subheading for Unauthorized Persons, it is a violation of examination procedure for the students to have contact with unauthorized persons (including parents and teachers) for the duration of the examination.
The second part of the PSE, which includes Mathematics and Social Studies, will be sat on May 5th. Results are expected to be out by the first week of June.
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