Despite the death of their school principal in 2025, almost 30% of students at Jessie Ripoll Primary School were placed in their first choice of high school following the 2026 Primary Exit Profile (PEP).
The school, owned and administered by the Roman Catholic Church in Jamaica, but partially funded by the Jamaican government, had the highest first-choice placement rate of 72 public primary schools in Kingston and St. Andrew with at least 20 PEP candidates, as ranked by 18° North Data.
The raw data were obtained from the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information under the Access to Information Act but cleaned and analyzed by 18° North Data using AI.
While percentage of first-choice placements is only one benchmark to gauge the quality of a school, it is one criterion that can be objectively measured.
St. Richard’s Primary, another Roman Catholic Church-owned school, ranked second, and Mona Heights Primary, a government-owned institution, came in third with just over 22% of their students each getting their first choice for high school.
A higher percentage of students at these three tuition-free schools managed to get their first choice in 2026 compared to the 21.8% of students combined across 54 private prep schools in Kingston and St Andrew with at least one PEP candidate for which parents pay hundreds of thousands of dollars each term in hopes their child will get an edge.
But these three primary schools were the standouts.
Overall, across 99 public primary schools in those parishes with at least one PEP candidate, fewer than 9% of students got their first choice.
First-choice placement rates at some public primary schools were particularly low.
George Headley Primary in Duhaney Park in St. Andrew, for example, fielded 203 candidates and only had four first-choice placements —or fewer than 2% of their students. Allman Town Primary in Kingston had 74 candidates, and only one of them got their first choice. No student got their first choice of a combined 174 students at five other public primary schools.
Since the release of the 18° North Data Preparatory School Rankings, education ministry representatives and educators have cautioned that low placement rates at some schools may reflect the tendency for parents to select the top high schools for the child’s first choice despite advice from educators and administrators that, based on the child’s grades, there’s little to no chance of them getting in.
PEP placement scores draw on assessments from Grades 4, 5 and 6, with 40 points assigned at Grade 4, 80 at Grade 5 and 280 at Grade 6, for a possible total of 400 points. Since placement is computerized, the students that get the best grades are the ones that tend to get their first choice regardless of whether they attend a public primary or private prep school.
To better guide parents, in our Ranking of Public Primary Schools, 18° North Data is also including in the same report a Comprehensive List of ALL the High Schools in Kingston and St. Andrew and the Average Grade of the Students Placed at Each High School in 2025 and 2026, as obtained from the Ministry of Education.
Here now is the Full Ranking of the Kingston & St. Andrew Public Primary Schools and the Mean PEP Placement Score at Each High School in those parishes:
