Sixteen-year-olds are leaving school with a “poor command” of English despite having been exposed to the language in the classroom for 10 years, examiners have warned, expressing “great concern” at the situation.

Inadequate levels of grammatical accuracy, spelling, punctuation and expression were among the shortcomings flagged by the Matsec Examinations’ Board in a report on the performance of candidates who sat for the English Language Secondary Education Certificate Examinations held last May.

The examiners called for efforts to instil in students a greater awareness of the importance of English as an international language and not merely as a school subject.

“Overall, a lack of reading with its concomitant lack of thinking skills is becoming alarmingly apparent,” the report says.

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