Opposition Chief Whip deletes Facebook post falsely accusing NGSA students of poor grades
Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones deleted a Facebook post on Wednesday after making an inaccurate claim about a supposed decline in the performance of pupils who sat the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA).
In the post, Jones asserted, “When one examines the results over the past four years, one thing immediately stands out: our students in the Top 1% are getting lower and lower grades.”
He supported his claim by sharing the top scores by year: 518 in 2022, 506.7 in 2023, 503.3 in 2024, and 487.88 in 2025.
However, the perceived decline Jones referenced is not due to poorer student performance but rather a reduction in the highest possible score achievable each year.
For example, in 2025, the maximum possible score was 487.88, which was attained by Tanasha Mayers of the Academy of Excellence, representing a perfect 100 per cent pass rate.
Over the years, the NGSA’s maximum achievable score has decreased, explaining why top scores appear lower, not because of declining student ability, but due to changes in scoring metrics.
Once this was brought to his attention, Jones quietly removed the misleading post from his Facebook account. However, screenshots of his claims had already been circulated online.
This incident follows a pattern in which several opposition politicians have previously disseminated false or misleading information regarding national education performance.
At the announcement of the results at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, stated, “Guyana has done the best she has ever done, and by far. Our children are doing better, and this proves that consistent, conscious investment pays off.”
For the first time, more than 63 per cent of students achieved 50 per cent or more across all subjects, with public school students now accounting for the majority of placements at top national schools, such as Queen’s College, Bishops’, and St. Stanislaus College.
