St James High celebrates stellar CSEC pass rates
Published:Tuesday | September 16, 2025 | 12:09 AMAdrian Frater/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Despite several distractions over the past year, including the highly publicised clash between the school’s principal and its chairman, St James High continues to shine as a beacon of excellence.
The school achieved excellent results in the May-June 2025 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams.
“We have been doing extremely well. There are some very hard-working teachers at the school, who go above and beyond to ensure their students’ success,” said principal Joseph Williams. “I must commend the parents who have been working with us and sending the students to the extra classes and workshops.”
The school, which operates on a shift system, has had to find creative ways to ensure students don’t miss out in terms of the hours they interface with their teachers, through initiatives such as teachers working extra hours outside of their designated shifts, targeted workshops, and classes on weekends.
“These initiatives work because we get strong support from the parents of those who actively participated in helping to prepare students for their examinations,” said Williams, in noting that their success was built around a collaborative effort between the various stakeholders.
The overall results show several departments recording pass rates between 90 and 100 per cent. The high-achieving subject areas include human and social biology, information technology, industrial technology – electrical – principles of business and accounts, office administration, nusic, visual arts, food and nutrition, English language and agricultural science. In fact, only three subject areas saw pass rates below 50 per cent.
While many schools in western Jamaica continue to struggle with declining past rates in mathematics, St James High showed notable improvement this year.
“Last year, the pass rate for mathematics was in the 20 per cent range, but this year the pass rate is over 40 per cent,” disclosed Williams, who strongly believes that with greater parental support, the results would have been even better. “We cannot do it alone; we need more parents to step up and work with us, so we can get these students to do even better.”
TESTAMENT TO COMMITMENT
According to Williams, the improved performance serves as a testament to the commitment and work ethic of the teachers and students. He nonetheless made it clear that the mathematics department will be pushing for an even higher increase next year.
The breakdown of the overall pass rates this year shows: biology, 100 per cent; physical education, 100 per cent; family and resource nanagement, 100 per cent; visual arts, 100 per cent; industrial technology– electrical, 100 per cent; electrical document preparation and management, 100 per cent; Spanish, 83 per cent; information technology, 98 per cent; music, 96 per cent; food nutrition and health, 95 per cent; principles of accounts, 94 per cent; industrial technology – building, 93 per cent; English language, 93 per cent; office administration, 92 per cent; principles of business, 91 per cent; human and social biology, 90 per cent; industrial technology – mechanic, 89 per cent; technical drawing, 89 per cent; English literature, 82 per cent; geography, 78 per cent; clothing and textile, 72 per cent; history, 67 per cent; and social studies, 64 per cent.
Marco-Dean Gordon was the most outstanding performer among the boys with 10 subjects (six grade ones, four grade twos), while Hope Hamiliton was the top girl with seven subjects (all grade ones).
In February, St James High School was in the news for several days following an ugly face-off between Williams and school board Chairman Christopher McCurdy, which was captured on a video that went viral. It took the intervention of the Ministry of Education to restore some semblance of order.
That was the latest in a series of incidents involving the chairman and the principal over whether the former has the right to determine the day-to-day running of the school.