GibYOUTH: 94% overall pass rate ‘A’ Levels

The overall pass rate this year was 94%, the same as last year’s pass rate.

The Department of Education, as well as the teachers in the schools are on hand to advice, support and provide guidance and assistance to all students, both those who have secured a place at University and those who may need to continue to seek one through the clearing process or who will now be looking at other options.

Minister for Education, John Cortes, congratulated both students and teachers on their hard work and efforts, and said, “Once again students and teachers – and the whole education support network have done us proud. There is an exciting future ahead for all these young people, regardless of their results. Some will pursue higher education, while others will choose other avenues. In every case, we will be there to encourage them as they look towards their future.”

When asked how he felt about the A Level results, Bayside Headteacher Michael Tavares said, “You can imagine, I feel very proud of the students and the staff as well, they have all worked very hard otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get where we are now. 90% pass rate overall, excellent achievements all around the board.”

Bayside students expressed their satisfaction with PANORAMA, saying that they feel pretty good and happy with the results that they got. “I would say we are fairly excited for the future. It’s all still quite uncertain but we will figure it out along the way,” one student said.

PANORAMA also spoke with the Westside headteacher, Michelle Barabich, and she said,“We are very happy with the results, we’ve got 98% of students from A* to E, so we’re very ecstatic with that. We are also very happy that our top grades from A* to B are 45%, so given the difficulty with grade boundaries, given the difficulty of the extra pressure of the exams becoming more difficult, our students have done brilliantly well. We also have to acknowledge the work that has gone into getting them to their standard by their teachers.”

She continued by saying, “Our aim as always is to get the students to do their personal best, whatever that may be. As with everything, everybody is not going to be a Gibraltarian Scholar, not everyone is going to get A’s, but when you see students that have started and have achieved grades that can get them to courses that they want to get into, irrespective of what their grade is, that is our success story, and we have had many today.”

“We feel sad leaving Westside but the fact that the building is being demolished is like a perfect ending to everything, full closure.” A Westside student said.

Staff at the Gibraltar College, especially IT teachers, were very happy with the A Level results. Applied Business saw 100% pass rate with 6 entries, 100% in Spanish with 8 entries, 100% in Fine Art with 2 entries and 97% in IT with no failures out of 29 entries.

PANORAMA spoke to Gibraltar College Principal, Leon Abecasis, who said, “Lots of extremely happy faces this morning. The results this year are broadly similar to last years. Generally they have all done very well. IT for example is one of the subjects that have done particularly well – grades are up. With the A Level IT students, all the students have passed. Very proud of all the teaching staff and students. One of my students said this morning, ‘Without the college I wouldn’t have been able to do this’, yes, but it works both ways – its a partnership. We can do so much but we also need the students to respond. When both combine, we can produce the result that we all want.”

16-08-19 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR