By Vishani Ragobeer
Almost 16,000 pupils wrote the 2025 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), Guyana’s secondary school placement examination. This year, there were improvements in all four subject areas, and Education Minister Priya Manickchand hailed these results as the best in Guyana’s history.
Tanasha Mayers, a pupil of the Academy of Excellence in Region Three, topped this year’s NGSA with 487.88 marks. She achieved a perfect score.
In this visual guide, we start with an illustration of the pass rates for the four subject areas tested. The subjects assessed were English Language, Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics.
The Caribbean Examinations Council’s Director of Operations, Dr. Nicole Manning, at the 2025 NGSA results announcement ceremony, said there were improvements in all subject areas. CXC is the body that administers and marks the assessment.
So, how do the 2025 pass rates compare with previous years? The following four graphs show how pupils performed in each subject area since 2017. The 2017 to 2025 range has been used, as these pass rates were readily available.
Special attention was directed to this year’s Mathematics pass rate. It is the first time the pass rate has gone past the 50% mark. In simpler terms, this is the first term that more than half of the pupils who wrote the assessment passed.
So let’s dive a bit deeper into these Math scores.
Based on data shared by Dr. Manning, the number of pupils who scored full marks in Mathematics nearly quadrupled compared to last year’s results; the number of pupils who scored no marks continued to decrease, as has been the case over the past five years.
Now that we’ve examined subject performances, let’s look closer at the regional distribution of the top 1% — that is, the regions from which the top performers hail.
All pupils in the top 1% earn a spot at Queen’s College. The cut-off scores for Guyana’s top secondary schools are as follows:
Queen’s College- 482.22 marks
The Bishops’ High School- 481.26 marks
St. Stanislaus College- 479.63 marks
St. Rose’s High School- 477.75 marks
St. Joseph High School- 476.06 marks
President’s College- 471.03 marks
No pupil from Regions Seven, Eight, or Nine – Guyana’s hinterland regions – made it into the top 1% this year and, therefore, did not secure a spot at Queen’s College. Usually, few students from these regions are part of the top 1%, although there are many instances of pupils from these regions making it to other top secondary schools.
The graph below shows the regional breakdown of pupils in the top 1% for over five years. These graphs were created using the top 1% lists issued each year by the Ministry of Education.
Although this serves as an indicator of the most outstanding performances, several nuances must be considered when comparing the achievements of children from the hinterland with those from the coastal regions.
The first nuance to consider is population size. As shown in the graph below, far fewer pupils who take the assessment are from hinterland regions.
Next, there is the matter of available data. Only the data for the top 1% is public. Therefore, this has been used to provide some insights into the performance of children from the hinterland region.
However, a regional breakdown of the scores, including pass rates and scores detailing children who received full marks and zero marks (as shown before with Mathematics), could show how well the pupils perform despite not making it into the top 1%.
The News Room requested this data from the Ministry of Education – both publicly during the announcement of the 2025 results and privately in conversation with a representative of the public relations department – but it has not yet been shared.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand said her ministry has been focused on improving and equalising education delivery all across the country. A key venture has been training all teachers.
“We’ve seen a direct correlation between trained teachers and children doing well, and that is why we have embarked on a national training programme,” she told the News Room at the NGSA awards ceremony.
She also highlighted the suite of measures, including the provision of textbooks, other learning materials, and breakfast or hot meals, introduced to better support schoolchildren across the country.
Additionally, the Education Minister explained the thrust behind the government’s ambitious school construction agenda. Manickchand noted that since 2020, 22 secondary schools have been constructed or are being built in the four hinterland regions; this is expected to improve access to education.
“The dream is not to have everyone aim to come to Georgetown. That used to be the dream 20 years ago because we had no other choice.
“The dream now is to allow every single child in their village, at the tender age of 11 or 12, to go to school in their village and enjoy the love and guidance and food from their homes and their parents,” the Education Minister said.
Altogether, Manickchand opined that these efforts should support schoolchildren better and help the country achieve more progress in the education sector.
The post NGSA 2025: A closer look at Guyana’s best results ever appeared first on News Room Guyana.
