According to the report by the Caribbean Examination Board of this year's performances, more than 70 percent of all the candidates writing Technical Vocational subjects achieved Grades I to III. Clothing and Textiles led the way with 94 percent of candidates obtaining Grades I to III, followed by Home Economic Management with 87 percent, Building Technology (Woods) with 79.5 percent and Building Technology (Construction) with 76.7 percent.

This year, just over 66 percent of the subject entries presented for Technical Proficiency achieved Grades I to III, while just over 61 percent of entries presented for General Proficiency achieved Grades I to III.

In the Basic Proficiency examinations, approximately 34 percent of the subject entries achieved Grades I to III. This is slightly lower than last year when 37 percent achieved Grades I to III.

Agricultural Science also recorded very good performance on all options. In the Agricultural Science (Animal Science) close to 93 percent of the entries obtained Grades I to III, while 87 percent of entries for Agricultural Science (Crops and Soil) achieved Grades I to III. For the Double Award option, 76 percent of entries obtained Grades I to III.

The Business Studies subjects also returned excellent performances with the exception of Typewriting. Just over 82 percent of the entries achieved Grades I to III in Office Procedures; 75.8 percent in Principles of Business and 71 percent in Principles of Account.

The two foreign languages, French and Spanish recorded satisfactory performance, with over 70 percent of entries achieving Grades I to III. Performance in English and Mathematics at General Proficiency was the same as in 2002, with 50 percent of candidates in English and 40 percent in Mathematics achieving Grades I to III.

One hundred and twenty-eight thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight (128,298) candidates registered for the CSEC examinations. This represents an increase of 5738 (4.68%) compared with 2002.

Mathematics and English Language received the most subject entries with 92653 and 87918 entries respectively for both General and Basic Proficiencies. They were followed by Social Studies which received 39, 325 and the Business Education subjects, Principles of Business (37,287), Principles of Accounts (30521) and Office Procedures (17,177).

The demand for Information Technology continues to grow. This year 17,101 candidates registered for the Technical Proficiency offering compared with 13,597 candidates last year, while the General Proficiency offering saw moderate growth with 691 entries this year compared with 635 in 2002.

This year CXC examined 31 subjects in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC).