A’LEVEL vs SAT

Education Minister Hazel Manning does not think so. Speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference Thursday, Manning said the preliminary re-search showed that the majority of students remained in TT (where the A’ Level was very relevant for tertiary institutions.)

"We have to take care of the majority of our students who cannot afford it (to go abroad) and who are staying here," she said.

Manning said Government was committed to expanding the A’ Level capacity which was currently 15 per cent to somewhere between 30 and 60 percent.

Manning later released an assessment of the GCE A’ Level results performance by subject areas. The assessment showed that the highest pass rate was for Art and Design (97.96 percent), Literature in English (95.02 percent) and Spanish (91.76 percent).

French was not far behind (89.13), along with General Paper (86 percent) and Psychology (83.53 percent and Geography (81.21 percent).

The lowest pass rates were in the subjects: Mathematics (45.22 percent); law (46.15 percent) and geometrical and mechanical drawing (47.14 percent).

The results showed that apart from GP (which is compulsory) the highest number of students took Mathematics (2,552 students) with only 45 percent passing, Business Studies (1,734) which had a 75.49 percent pass rate and Chemistry (1,159 students) which also had a creditable 71.53 pass rate. Accounting and Physics were not far behind with 1,138 and 1,086 students and pass rates of 61.86 and 73.57 respectively

The lowest number of students took Art and Design (49 students), law (39 students) which had a pass rate of 46.15 percent and computing (40 students) which had a pass rate of 67.50 percent.