To make matters worse, more than half of the students who sat the exams failed.

In addition to IT, the Govern-ment also paid for students sitting mathematics, English language and a science subject at the CXC level.  These results also painted a grim picture as only 25 per cent of students managed to pass mathematics, while 39 per cent passed English.

Dorett Campbell, director of communications in the Ministry of Education, said the IT results were disappointing as this was one of the areas in which students usually perform well.  She said the Government would continue to pay for the subject despite the low performance, because part of the reason for doing so in the first place was to promote communication in a technologically-driven era.

Senator Noel Monteith, Minister of State in the Education Ministry, said he suspects that the reason for the low performance was that the exams were taken by the first set of GSAT students who sat the CXC exams.  He said the Ministry was doing an assessment to determine the cause for the poor performance.

Still, "I think we will definitely continue to pay for the subject," said Senator Monteith.  He noted that the Ministry had been putting in more computer labs and he expects the grades to be better next year.

The junior minister noted that it was most unfortunate that a number of students did not turn up for the exams, and said the Ministry will be conducting a detailed investigation into the matter.

"We don't know if teachers just registered students and they were not ready," Monteith said.

Howard Campbell, IT practitioner, told The Gleaner that the phenomenon of students not turning up for exams is nothing new.  He said rather than paying for exams, what should be done is that the Government should set up a facility where students are told that they will be reimbursed if they pass the exams.

Mr. Campbell noted that there were similar occurrences of absence in other Government-sponsored subjects and these are only preliminary counts.  He said the wastage will be more when the numbers are added up.

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