SECTION V: SECONDARY EDUCATION IN ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
Secondary Education
Secondary Education in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is provided by 29 institutions, 21 of which are public. The remaining eight schools are owned by churches but operate with substantial financial assistance from the Government. These eight schools are referred to as Assisted Secondary (AS) schools. In 2019-2020, the overall secondary enrolment stood at 9,351 with the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) being 97.86 while the Net Enrolment Rate (NER) was 81.31. The latter shows that the majority of pupils between 12-16 years are retained within the secondary cycle, while the former reflects that there are also pupils who entered early and are “under-aged” as well those who are a bit older and “over-aged”. The majority of secondary pupils attend public or government secondary schools as shown in the 29.01% private enrolment.
There was an increase in the overall number of teachers from 712 in 2018-2019 to 766 in 2019-2020. Over the last approximately ten (10) years, it was observed that the teaching staff is increasingly comprised of females, and 2019-2020 is no exception. Of the 766 teachers at the secondary level, 519 are female. Between the 2015-2016 and 2019-2020 academic years there was an increase in the proportion of trained teachers from 57.08 % to 62.01%. In 2019-2020, of the overall 475 trained teachers, 332 or 70.0% are female. While efforts are on-going to improve the skills of the teaching staff, there are still concerns regarding the best measures which could be employed to assist pupils who are not meeting the desired benchmarks or worse yet dropping out of the cycle as seen in the 188 pupils which declined from the previous year’s 257 who exited prematurely in 2019-2020.
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