By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

OF the 1,684 candidates who sat five or more BGCSE subjects this year, 627 — 37.2 percent — earned at least five C grades or better, while 970, or 57.6 percent, managed five subjects at grade D or above.

As a share of all 6,103 registrants, the numbers drop to about ten to 16 percent, though officials cautioned this understates achievement since many students take exams over multiple sittings.

Fewer students held steady at C and D grades across subjects, while more slipped into the weaker E, F and U bands. The overall results again place national performance close to the so-called “D average” that has long dominated public discussion, though officials say that label paints an incomplete picture of achievement.

Just 375 candidates — 22.3 percent of those sitting five or more subjects, or about six percent of all registrants — earned at least a C in Mathematics, English and a Science, one of the most widely recognised benchmarks of academic readiness.

Mathematics once again proved a stumbling block. Fewer than half of candidates achieved grades A–D in the subject this year, placing it alongside Biology and Bookkeeping & Accounts as areas where most students struggled. English Language, by contrast, ranked among the stronger performers, with the cohort doing best in creative and practical subjects such as Art & Design, Food & Nutrition and Music.

Overall, 83.4 percent of all BGCSE grades fell between A and E, a result officials described as a recurring accomplishment. But unlike in past years,

the report gave no subject-by-subject breakdown showing how many candidates earned at least a D in core exams like Maths or English, and officials did not take questions from the press when releasing the results.

The data also show that although more students registered for BGCSE this year — 6,103, up 2.9 percent from 2024 — the total number of grades awarded dipped slightly, from 20,616 to 20,595. That means candidates on average sat fewer subjects than before.

By gender, both males and females slipped at C and D, but males saw a small rise at grade A while females fell. At the bottom end, both sexes recorded increases at E, F and U, a sign of continued difficulty at the weakest bands.

Several schools also recorded GPA improvements compared to last year. A.F. Adderley, D.W. Davis, Government High and C.C. Sweeting were among those showing gains in New Providence, while Eight Mile Rock High, Tabernacle Baptist, Central Andros High, Queen’s College, Aquinas College and St Augustine’s College also posted improvements.