(CMR) According to a data report published by the Department of Education Services and the Ministry of Education, only 26% of children leaving government primary schools achieved the expected standard in reading, writing, and mathematics for the 2022/2023 academic year.
This means that 74% of Year 6 students were not performing at the expected standard. This is 1% down from the 27% who met the required standard in the previous academic year.
This level of performance has raised concerns as the Education Ministry has a budget of approximately $200 million annually, with the money invested in government-owned schools per child at one of the highest rates in the world.
According to the report, 59% of the Year 6 cohort achieved the expected standard in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. This was the only area in which over 50% of students attained the expected standard.
Only 43% of the cohort achieved the expected standard in reading, 41% achieved the expected standard in mathematics, and only 46% achieved the expected standard in writing. In all subject areas, girls continue to outperform boys by an average of 16 percentage points (pp), with the most significant difference observed in writing (27pp).
Other standardized tests used to look at the children's performance also indicated they were performing below the expected level.
The Cognitive Abilities Test Fourth Edition (CAT4), which provides a detailed overview of a student's cognitive abilities and serves as a baseline measure of their academic potential, was used.
The system also uses a set of Rising Stars (RS) standardized progress tests, namely progress in reading assessment (PiRA), progress in understanding mathematics (PUMA), and progress in grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GAPS), to track student attainment and progress.
When the KS2 data is compared against both CAT4 predictors and Rising Stars estimates for this cohort, students fell below their predicted or estimated levels across all areas, the data report stated.
Year 11 students have shown improvement but less than 50% have achieved the nationally expected standard. According to the report, for the academic year 2022-2023, 48.5% achieved the nationally expected standard of 5 or more L2 qualifications, including English and mathematics.
The majority of Year 11 students, 79.8% of the cohort, achieved an L2 qualification in English Language; 52.3% achieved an L2 qualification in mathematics; and 67.3% achieved an L2 qualification in science.
Across the government, private and home school sectors, a total of 9,042 students were enrolled in compulsory education in the 2022-23 academic year.
Of the mandatory school-age population considered, 49.9% was in primary education (4,515 students), and 50.1% in secondary education (4,527 students).
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