Dominica

Preprimary and primary education is free and compulsory and is provided in public, assisted, and private (independent) schools. Enrollment of eligible students between the ages of 5 to 11 years was 98 percent in 1999. At the preprimary level, the student-teacher ratio was 18:1. At the primary level, the ratio was 22:1. The highest student-teacher ratio was in the government-assisted schools (25:1), with the lowest being at the private schools (20:1). The student-teacher ratio was lower in rural areas (21:1) than in urban areas (24:1). At the end of grade 6, primary students sit for the Common Entrance Examination (CEE), which determines entrance into secondary education. Transition rates from the primary to the secondary level are among the lowest in the Caribbean, with only 60 percent of the 12- to 16-year-olds enrolled in secondary education. The Junior Secondary Program is available for those students who were not selected by the CEE to enroll in secondary school. This is a three-year program that leads to a select number of students being able to enter formal secondary school. A review of the CEE shows that, at the primary level of education, girls consistently outperform boys in all subjects, leading to a higher level of representation at the secondary level. The overall repetition rate for primary school students in 1998 was 3.3 percent, with males having a slightly higher repetition rate of 3.5 percent. The overall dropout rate at the primary level was 0.16 percent in 1999, again, with males having a higher average rate of 0.25 percent.