PEP stable despite Hurricane Melissa disruption, minister says

The Ministry of Education says performance in this year's Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examinations remained stable, with most students achieving proficient or highly proficient ratings despite the disruption caused by Hurricane Melissa last October.

“It was a difficult year with the hurricane, but we persevered,” said Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon as she announced the 2025-2026 results at news conference on Monday. “These PEP six results shows us the resilience of our country.” 

The results are now being made available to schools and students. 

In Mathematics, 61 per cent of students were classified as proficient and eight per cent as highly proficient, while only one per cent performed at the beginning level. This is compared with the 56 per cent of students who achieved proficiency last year. 

For language arts, 66.5 per cent of students were deemed proficient and 5.5 per cent as highly proficient, compared with the 67 per cent who were proficient last year. 

The PEP exams is Jamaica’s national assessment for grade-six students and is used to place children in high school. It is designed to measure students’ attainment of the objectives outlined in the National Standards Curriculum over a three-year period. 

A total of 31,868 students at the grade-six level on April 29 and 30. 

However, the students did only ability tests because of the disruptions to the teaching and learning process caused by the hurricane. It included 40 multiple-choice questions for the mathematics curriculum-based test, and 60 multiple-choice questions in the language arts curriculum-based test. 

Social studies and integrated sciences subjects were omitted. 

Meanwhile, 79 per cent of students attained mastery in the literacy assessment, 17 per cent achieved mastery and four percent were classified as non-mastery. 

The literacy assessment focused exclusively on reading comprehension, as the writing component was not administered due to the suspension of the extended paper. 

In the numeracy assessment, 75 per cent of students attained mastery, 18 per cent achieved mastery and seven per cent fell into the non- mastery category. 

The national minimum proficiency target is 85 per cent by 2030 

Of the 31,868 registered students, 31,565 were deemed to have met the criteria for being placed in a high school. 

A total of 303 students who were registered for the Grade 6 PEP 2025 examination were excluded from placement in a high school. 

Among the reasons for exclusion are; the student was absent from all grade six components administered and is of the age where he or she can remain in primary school for the upcoming academic year. 

There were also special requests from parents or principals to have a student sit the PEP examination but not be placed as the student will be attending a private high school in the upcoming academic year. 

A third reason is that a student’s psycho-educational evaluation report was reviewed by the Officers in Special Education Unit and the student was deemed to be better placed in a special education institution to support their learning needs 

Some 632 students were granted special accommodations to sit the exam. These included extra time, readers or writers, and interpreters, and Braille materials. 

A total of 239 students were absent from the examinations, representing decline from the 292 that were absent last year. 

The main reasons for absenteeism were migration and grade repetition, the ministry said. 

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