The Bahamas’ Ministry of Education has released official 2026 results for the Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) and Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC) examinations, revealing incremental overall improvements alongside concerning gaps in high-level academic performance.
For this year’s BGCSE cycle, 6,169 candidates registered to sit exams, with 2,002 completing five or more subjects. Education Director Dominique McCartney-Russell announced that just 32.4 percent of this group — 649 students in total — secured at least five C grades or higher, a slight uptick from 627 students hitting the same benchmark in 2025. While the overall A-D pass rate climbed modestly from 70.13 percent in 2025 to 71.49 percent this year, and the A-C pass rate inched up 0.48 percentage points to 51.61 percent, McCartney-Russell emphasized that all gains are concentrated at the lower end of the passing scale. Proportions of A and B grades declined across the board, with increases in C and D grades driving the overall pass rate improvement. Only 5.83 percent of all registered BGCSE candidates — 360 students total — earned at least a C grade in three core subjects: Mathematics, English Language, and a science course.
A breakdown of subject performance showed several areas with strong pass rates: Geography led the group at 88.9 percent, followed by French at 87.4 percent, Electrical Installation at 86.7 percent, Art and Design A at 86.5 percent, Religious Studies at 85.7 percent, and Chemistry at 82.7 percent. English Language posted an 81.6 percent pass rate, while Commerce, Spanish, and History all hovered around 80 percent. Physics recorded a 76.7 percent pass rate, with Combined Science following close behind at 76.2 percent.
Consistent with past trends, female candidates outperformed their male peers at the BGCSE level. The overall A-D pass rate for female students reached 73.55 percent, compared to 68.46 percent for males. Females saw improvements in proportions of A, C, and D grades over 2025 results, while males only recorded gains in C and D grades, with drops in A and B grades. The ungraded rate also differed by gender: 3.15 percent for females and 4.6 percent for males.
Turning to BJC results, the secondary-level junior exam also posted a small overall gain in pass rates, despite a drop in the share of students hitting the key benchmark of five C grades or higher among those sitting five or more subjects. A total of 10,449 candidates registered for BJC 2026 across 120 exam centers, a slight decrease from 10,477 candidates at 123 centers in 2025. Of the 3,904 candidates who completed five or more BJC subjects this year, 36 percent (1,405 students) earned at least five C grades or better, down from 38.8 percent (1,316 students) in 2025. The share of candidates earning five or more A-D passes also fell slightly from 52.7 percent in 2025 to 49.9 percent this year.
Even with these dips in key benchmark performance, the overall BJC A-D pass rate rose from 64.54 percent in 2025 to 65.76 percent this year, and the proportion of A-C grades increased from 47.63 percent to 49.04 percent. Unlike BGCSE, BJC saw gains in top grades: the share of A grades rose from 10.19 percent to 11.32 percent, and the share of B grades increased from 16.41 percent to 16.99 percent. Only 11.88 percent of all registered BJC candidates (1,241 students) earned a C or higher in the three core subjects of Mathematics, English Language, and science, a small drop from 1,251 students hitting that mark in 2025.
Art and Design recorded the highest BJC A-D pass rate at 97.4 percent, followed by Craft Study at 97.2 percent and Family and Consumer Science at 95.9 percent. Eleven of the 13 BJC subjects offered recorded improvements in grade point averages compared to 2025, with only English Language and Religious Studies seeing declines. Mathematics posted a 55.6 percent pass rate, with the number of A-D passes increasing by 5.8 percent year-over-year, while general science recorded a 56.4 percent pass rate and a 9.7 percent increase in A-D passes. English Language, despite a 62.8 percent overall pass rate, saw a 13.7 percent drop in total A-D passes. McCartney-Russell noted that while English Language saw a significant jump in the share of A grades, declines in grades B through D pulled down overall performance for the subject.
Just as at the BGCSE level, female BJC candidates outperformed males, posting an overall pass rate of 68.4 percent compared to 62.65 percent for male candidates.
Ministry of Education officials have urged careful interpretation of the annual results, noting that the data only provides a snapshot of a single exam cycle. Many candidates spread their subject exams across multiple test sittings to accumulate passing grades, meaning the annual figures do not represent a full measure of students’ cumulative academic achievement over their secondary careers.