Dear Editor,
I write in response to the coverage of this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results, particularly the remarks of the top performers and the findings shared by the Caribbean Examinations Council’s Director of Operations, Dr. Nicole Manning.
What struck me most was not the historic feat of twenty pupils sharing the top spot, but how ordinary and grounded their explanations for success were. None of them spoke of shortcuts or secret formulas. Instead, they pointed to consistent practice with past papers going back to Grade Five, extra lessons and composition classes, and the steady encouragement of parents and teachers. One young achiever’s advice to her peers was simple: believe in yourself, work hard, and lean on the adults around you when you need help. There is something worth sitting with in the fact that our brightest students, when asked to explain their success, reach for discipline and support rather than talent alone.
That message matters because it lines up with what Dr. Manning reported at the results ceremony: improvement was not confined to a handful of exceptional children but showed up across all four subject areas — English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies — with more pupils achieving full marks and, notably, no pupil recording a zero in English or Social Studies. Mathematics, long regarded as the region’s most troublesome subject, posted the largest year-on-year gain. When the gains are this broad, they say less about a few gifted individuals and more about the system around them: classroom instruction, home support, and the interventions the Ministry of Education has been rolling out over several years.
Taken together, the top performers’ own accounts and CXC’s subject-by-subject data tell the same story from two different angles. The improvement we celebrated this year was built on unglamorous, repeatable habits — habits that were within reach of many more of the nearly 16,000 children who sat the exam, not just those who topped it. If we want next year’s results to be even better, the lesson from both the students and the statistics is the same: keep investing in the everyday supports — practice, mentorship, attendance, and encouragement — that made this year’s gains possible, and extend them to every school and every region, not only the ones already producing perfect scores.
Congratulations are due to every pupil, teacher, and parent who contributed to this year’s results. But the real test of our education system will be whether the practices behind this success can be sustained and spread widely enough that “top performer” becomes a less exclusive club with each passing year.
Let their words be the chants of the rest of the nation: believe in yourself, put in the work, and never be too proud to ask for help.