Ministry to talk with educators before facing exam body

Government is preparing to meet with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) on possible changes to next year’s exams but not before seeking the views of educators here, the Minister of Education has declared.

Santia Bradshaw said the CXC examinations slated for January would be held as normal, and discussions regarding those exams usually held in May-June were in the works.

The minister said engaging with CXC would only follow consultation with principals and teachers at secondary schools across the island.

“CXC has updated not only the local registrar but it has updated the [ministries of education] across the various countries across the region,” Bradshaw told a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “One of the things that has been proposed is a number of options available to the region in relation to 2021 and the sitting of the examination.

“What I sought to do was seek the input as we would have done with the 11-Plus change of date to allow the secondary school teachers, allow the principals to be able to weigh in on the proposals that are on the table.

“I believe that one of the benefits of so doing is that we have consensus on the way forward and therefore we have pretty much looked at what is the state of play in Barbados at this point in time within our schools.

“We want to know whether teachers are able to complete the syllabus, whether there are aspects of the syllabus they will not be able to meet, whether they believe that the SBAs [School-Based Assessments] should be carried out in a different format for different subjects and therefore we want to be able to have full discussion.

“The recommendations have started to come in from the various schools and it is my intention after to be able to meet with CXC, because we have to be able as a country to put our position to CXC and from the persons who have to implement the system and so I am hopeful that we will be in a position to speak to them very shortly once we have been able to go through the recommendations.”

A cloud of uncertainty still hangs over the results of this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), which were pushed back to July due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following an outcry of complaints from students across the region about unusually low grades, CXC agreed to conduct a review of those exams.

To date, the review has not been completed. (RB)