Why do you think students do so poorly at CSEC Math?
- Augustus Cadette
- Sep 20, 2025
- 1 min read
Saint Lucia recorded a pass rate of a mere 42 percent in mathematics at the May/June 2025 sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate Exams, CSEC. For Saint Lucia, it was the lowest pass rate among the subjects tested at the May/June 2025 sitting. This marks the continuation of a stubborn and disturbing trend of underachievement in the subject. What do you think is the SINGLE most significant cause of the historically poor performance in CSEC Math?
Could it be that during our formative years of learning, society and our education system do not sufficiently nurture our reasoning capacity, a characteristic which is essential for success in math? If this is indeed so, then students need to make a DELIBERATE effort to improve their reasoning capacity and skills.
...Or might it be that students who do poorly at math do poorly primarily because they never obtained a proper understanding of some of the important foundational mathematical topics, concepts and processes on which an understanding of CSEC math depends. Some of these foundational topics are, for example: fractions, integers, ratios and proportions, indices, basic number theory and even times tables.