CARICOM CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (CCDP)

National Census Report 2001, St. Vincent and the GrenadinesTable 4.4: Population Attending Secondary School byAdministrative Division and Sex, 2001Administrative Total Male Female Sex RatioDivisionTotal 7 290 3 085 4 205 73Kingstown 991 427 564 76Kingstown Suburb 809 333 476 70Calliaqua 1 590 681 909 75Marriaqua 619 265 354 75Bridgetown 496 191 305 63Colonarie 488 190 298 64Georgetown 443 190 253 75Sandy Bay 130 55 75 73Layou 436 171 265 65Barrouallie 337 154 183 84Chateaubelair 434 197 237 83North Grenadines 329 152 177 86South Grenadines 188 79 109 72Compared to 1991, there was a 4.91 per cent increase in secondary school attendance during theintercensal period. This is considered as an achievement toward government's policy ofimproving access to secondary education. The percentage increase in secondary schoolattendance between 1991 and 2001 was much higher among males compared to their femalecounterparts, 10.45 and 1.18 per cent respectively. It also signifies the narrowing of the gap ofsecondary school attendance between the males and females.Although there was a significant increase in the number of males accessing secondary education,they were still outnumbered by the females. Fewer males entered secondary school and theytended to have a higher dropout rate compared to females. For example, in the 2003-2004 schoolyear, the sex ratio for first formers was 83 compared to 69 for fifth formers (MEYS, 2004).Assuming that the fifth formers entered First Form with the same sex ratio as the 2003-2004 firstformers, then these figures indicate that there were 83 males for every 100 female that started45