Summary results 2022 CPEA

Background

The Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) was introduced in place of the National Common Entrance Examination (CEE) for the first time in 2012.

The CPEA is a measure of the key skills required by students exiting the primary school system. It involves continuous assessment of students’ performances throughout Grades 5 and 6. Students are therefore assessed for formative, summative and diagnostic purposes. The CPEA has been developed by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) in collaboration with the Ministries of Education throughout the region.

Despite the presence of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, Grenada was able to administer both the internal and the external components of the CPEA during the 2021–2022 academic year. The Ministry of Education encouraged the wearing of masks and hand sanitising in all examination centres.

The 2022 Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) officially commenced with the internal component in September 2021 and culminated with the external components on Thursday, 12 May and Friday, 13 May 2022. The assessment was opened to all students who were 11 on or before 1 September 2022. Due to challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2022, a few students were unable to write the external component of the assessment. In this instance, the Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development, Religious Affairs, and Information utilized the CPEA internal assessment scores and the Minimum Competency Test (MCT) Grade 5 scores to assist in the assignment of affected students to a secondary school, in a ratio of 2:1, respectively.

THE CPEA COMPRISES 2 COMPONENTS:

• Internal Assessment (40% of total score)
• External Assessment (60% of total score)

Features of the internal assessment include:

• Project
• Book Report
• Writing Portfolio
• Self-assessment
• Practice in “Can-Do” Skills: English, Mathematics, Science and Civics
• Teacher-made-Test in English, Mathematics, Science and Civic

Features of the external assessment include 50 multiple-choice questions in:

Language Arts (B) Mathematics (C) Science (D) Social Studies

Students were given 75 minutes to complete each paper.

REGISTRATION AND SECONDARY SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT

1,803 students were registered for the Assessment in 2022. This figure included 955 males and 848 females. However, 1,794 students wrote the internal component whereas 1,783 students wrote the external component of the examination.

Of the 1,794 students, 950 males and 844 females, who completed at least one component of the CPEA assessment during the specific period, 1,645 have been assigned to a secondary school. This number includes 833 males and 812 females. The remaining 149 students, 116 males and 33 females, who are unassigned, would be supported to sit the assessment in 2023.

In 2021, one thousand nine hundred and six (1,906) students were registered to write the CPEA, but only 1,720 students were assigned to secondary schools. 1,872 students were registered for the CPEA in 2020; but only 1,743 students were assigned to secondary schools. Since no external assessment was possible in 2020, the CPEA Internal scores and the Minimum Competency Test (MCT) Grade 5 scores were utilised to place the students.

Table 1: The number of students assigned to each secondary school (2022)

GENERAL RESULTS

The highest score attained in the assessment was 483 out of a maximum possible score of 500. In 2019 and 2021, the highest score was 490 and 488, respectively. The lowest score obtained in the examination was 108, compared to 7 in 2019 and 117 in 2021. The national mean of 68.59 in 2022, reflects a marginal decline of 1.1%, against 2021’s 69.69. In 2019 the national mean was 71.68. Ninety-one point seven percent (91.7%) of the CPEA candidates writing the assessment obtained 50% or more in the assessment. This reflects an improvement of 1.22% when compared to the 90.48% achieving the same mark in 2021. In 2020, although there was no external component of the CPEA, 93.1% of the Grade 6 students were assigned to secondary schools.

Each primary school will receive its specific copy of the Grade 6 students’ assignments to a secondary school with particulars for their students only. Therefore, the Ministry will not publish the comprehensive listing in 2022.

External Component

In the external component, students performed the best in Science. Out of a total possible score of 100, the national mean in Science was 59.88, a decline of 5.09 from 2021’s 64.97. The most notable drop was in Language Arts with a shift from 65.39 in 2021 to 46.92 in 2022. The subject Mathematics documented the most significant increase, moving from a mean score of 49.06 in 2021 to 53.88. The mean for Social Studies external component in 2021 was 64.51 compared to 59.87 in 2022.

Table 2: The national mean in each subject area in the external component

Internal Component

In the internal assessment, the best performance was recorded in Language Arts, followed by Science, Social Studies and Mathematics at the rear. Table 3 below demonstrates the national mean in all of the areas. The mean score in Language Arts, internal component was 83.56 and Mathematics mean score was 81.70.

Table 3: The national mean in each subject area in the internal component of the assessment

Table 4: Number of students obtaining 50% or above in the external assessment

Table 4 shows that 1242 students attained 50% or above in the external component of the examination. This figure represents 69.66% of the students writing this component.

Table 5: Number of students obtaining 50% or above in the internal assessment

There were 1,749 students achieving the 50% or above mark in the internal component of the examination, representing 97.5% of the cohort participating in the internal aspect of the examination.