Guyana has recorded a 97.96 per cent secondary school retention rate among a cohort of students whose education was significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is according to Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussain, who spoke during the release of the 2026 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) and Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) results on Tuesday.
The cohort entered secondary education during one of the most challenging periods, writing the National Grade Six Assessment in 2021 before experiencing disruptions to their transition into secondary school. Their physical return to classrooms only came on April 25, 2022, meaning many of the students who sat CSEC this year never had a conventional Form One experience.
Against that backdrop, the retention report found that 13,821 students wrote the 2021 placement examination, with 13,052 going on to write CSEC five years later in 2026, a difference of 769 students.
That gap, the ministry said, should not be interpreted simply as students being lost from the education system. Of the 769 students, 488 opted to pursue technical education at the end of Grade 10 or Grade 11 rather than sit CSEC, choosing a vocational pathway through Guyana’s technical institutes instead.
For Hussain, the figures underscored the importance of maintaining multiple pathways for students as they progressed through secondary education. He commended the Government’s decision to reopen schools during the pandemic despite criticism at the time.
“When everybody said we were crazy to go back to school during COVID, this is the result of it that we can see today,” he said.
That commitment to keeping students engaged, the Ministry said, was reflected in the growing uptake of technical and vocational education, which offered students who did not pursue CSEC an opportunity to acquire practical skills leading directly into employment or further training. The wider 2026 results bore this out, showing an 8.9 per cent increase in the number of students writing at least one Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) subject at CSEC level, bringing participation close to half of the student population sitting the examinations.
Building on that momentum, the Government said it remained committed to keeping students within the education system through technical and vocational pathways that equip them with recognised qualifications, practical skills and meaningful opportunities. (DPI)
