SECTION IV: SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
Secondary Education
Secondary Education in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is provided by 26 institutions, 19 of which are public. The remaining seven schools are owned by churches but operate with substantial financial assistance from the Government. These seven schools are referred to as Assisted Secondary (AS) schools. In 2016-2017, the overall secondary enrolment stood at 10,113 with the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) being 105.50 while the Net Enrolment Rate (NER) was 94.36. 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 27.88% private enrolment.
There was only a marginal decline in the overall number of teachers from 706 in 2015-2016 to 704 in 2016-2017. Over the last approximately ten (10) years, it was observed that the teaching staff is increasingly comprised of females, and 2016-2017 is no exception. Of the 704 teachers at the secondary level, 476 are female. Between the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years there was an increase in the proportion of trained teachers from 55.24% to 61.22%. In 2016-2017, of the overall 431 trained teachers, 302 or 70.07% 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 226 pupils who exited prematurely in 2016-2017.