90% of PEP students placed in school of choice

Ninety per cent of students who sat the 2026 Primary Exit Profile (PEP) examination have been placed in a school of their choice.

Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon advised that 9.5 per cent were placed by proximity while 0.5 per cent were manually placed.

Addressing Monday’s PEP Press Conference at Jamaica House, she noted that students are given seven choices.

“Twenty-four per cent of the students got their first choice, 18 per cent got their second choice, 16 per cent got their third choice. So, when you add up all of that, you’re almost at 60 per cent that got their first three choices,” she shared.

Some 13 per cent were placed in their fourth choice, while 11 per cent each were placed in their fifth or sixth choice and seven per cent in their seventh choice.

Dr Morris Dixon said that the Ministry’s goal “has to be to raise the level of all our high schools, so that wherever you go, you feel like you can achieve”.

In congratulating the students, the Minister said it was a difficult year with the impact of Hurricane Melissa, but they persevered.

“These PEP Six results show us the resilience of our country,” she said.

Meanwhile, she shared that, overall, females performed better than males, but among the top-10 students, seven of them are males.

“The top primary student is from St. Elizabeth, and he is from Park Mountain Primary School,” she informed.