Education Minister Sonia Parag’s claim that Guyana has exceeded the Caribbean regional benchmark in primary education has sparked serious questions about the credibility of the government’s latest education triumph, given that Guyana does not participate in the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), the only common regional examination designed to measure primary school achievement across participating territories.

The minister’s declaration, made during Friday’s release of the 2026 National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) results, has shifted attention away from the government’s celebration of record pass rates and toward a more fundamental issue: on what objective basis can Guyana claim to have surpassed a regional benchmark when its students do not sit the region’s standardised primary assessment?

Unless the Ministry of Education publicly discloses the methodology used to reach that conclusion, the claim risks being viewed as unsubstantiated and raises broader concerns about transparency in the reporting of educational outcomes.