Primary Education
The primary enrolment for 2017-2018 stands at 13,194. This indicates an increase of 168 students over the 2016-2017 figure which stood at 13,026. 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 2017-2018 academic year was 103.40. 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 those who remain beyond age 11.
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 95.36 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 11.21% 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 2017 is $44,869,159 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. Teacher professional development continues to receive the greatest support and remains an important component in several of the projects currently being implemented.
The OECS Education Support Project financed by the Global Partnership for education is currently being implemented to improve the teaching and learning situation at the primary level in the four Windward Islands. The Key objectives of this project are to (i) use quality learning standards to support evidence based teaching and learning at the primary level; (ii) improve teacher practices at the primary level; (iii) strengthen primary school leadership and accountability and (iv) initiate the strengthening of sector monitoring and evaluation in support of evidence-based strategic management and decision making, in participating states.
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.