The primary enrolment for 2016-2017 stands at 13,026. This indicates a drop of 147 students below the 2015-2016 figure which stood at 13,373. Pupils within the primary cycle are accommodated in sixty eight (68) primary institutions. Of these institutions, 57 are public and the remaining 11 are government assisted or private. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for the 2016-2017 academic year was 102.17. This indicates that the sector is able to accommodate the pupils who are between 5-11 years as well as those who enter early just before age 5 and also those who are a bit older.
Hence, from Kindergarten through to Grade 6 there are children who in any of three classifications. These classifications are “under-aged”, “class-aged” and “over-aged”. Pupils who are younger than given age of their class and thus be deemed as “under-aged” while those at the specified age for their grade are regarded as “class-aged” and those above age of their class are referred to as “over-aged”. The Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) was 94.03 which indicates that pupils ages 5-11 years are afforded the requisite space in the education system.
In the primary cycle the majority of the pupils attend government or public institutions as reflected in the 10.76% private enrolment. Primary education continues to receive the largest share of the education recurrent budget with salaries, wages and allowances accounting for approximately 96% of the allocation. The recurrent allocation for primary education in 2016 is $44,972,163 which is also inclusive of the pre-primary cycle. The primary system continues to receive a sizable proportion of the budgetary allocation as the Ministry of Education strives to improve the quality of education throughout the sector. One of the main provisions is the School Feeding Programme. This initiative is geared at providing subsidized healthy meals for pupils thereby reducing ill health and boosting their overall learning capacity. It has been observed that this programme is more heavily subscribed in some rural districts as opposed to urban areas.
Considerable progress has been made in the primary sector, especially over the last 3 years. The introduction of the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) has emphasized student achievement at the end of the cycle. In its initial year, the overall CPEA pass rate was 78.08%, it then increased to 80.90% in the following year and for this year it augmented again to 85.35% in 2016-2017. While, the majority of the pupils continue to excel, efforts must be made to assist those who experience difficulties in learning and are thus forced to repeat or worse yet drop out of the cycle for one reason or another.
The following section of the Statistical Digest provides data regarding student enrolment, student performance, the number of repeaters by institution, dropouts, the number of teachers in each institution and their qualifications as well as the expenditure for this sector. Each of the above categories is further disaggregated by district, institution and gender as appropriate.