#BTEditorial – The CXC exam fix that may not fit

The year 2020 was not a good one for many businesses and institutions because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and this holds true for the Barbados-based Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). The entity has been inundated for months with criticism over 2020 CXC results.

Chief executive officer and registrar Dr Wayne Wesley endured the wrath of hundreds of parents, students and teachers across the region, who were disappointed at the grades some students received. They argued that the grades received were below the consistently high level of achievement the students had sustained over an extended period.

Some students even took to the streets in demonstrations, contending some had been deemed absent from exams, they claimed they were present at, and had written.

Subsequent attempts in some quarters to quell the outrage, appeared not to have achieved much.

The aggrieved parties were not prepared to accept the explanations offered by CXC.

Dr Wesley, whose first engagement with the media last year over the issue, was viewed a tad antagonistic by some parents and teachers’ unions. He managed to weather the storm that included calls for his removal as head of the regional body, and CXC’s restructuring.

While it was an easy ask, those asking quickly discovered, it was not so easy to accomplish such far-reaching demands. And suggestions of legal action were said to be doomed when it was discovered that the CXC enjoys near-untouchable status. Its structure and the regime under which it was established, provides the body and its staff with a great deal of insulation from legal action and political over-reach.

Determined, though, to seek redress over their frustrations at the initial grading of last year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), and CXC’s review process, the Group of Concerned Parents of Barbados, retained one of the island’s top legal firms to help them fight their cause.

Fast forwarding, it was surprising, when the CXC registrar announced earlier this week, that the 2021 CSEC and CAPE exams will occur in the traditional in-person format in mid-June and July, even as COVID-19 cases escalate throughout the region. The announcement comes as face-to-face attendance at school remains suspended in most territories.

The obvious question is why this route? Given the current economic, social, medical and mental health crises that COVID-19 has wrought from one end of the Caribbean to the other, could there not have been other viable alternatives?

Thousands of households are in financial and socio-economic turmoil. In Barbados, there has been a worrying number of suicides among young people. Though we are yet to uncover the genesis of such heart-rending actions, the stress of the current times cannot be ruled out.

Given these circumstances, is it not unrealistic to demand that our children be subjected to the regular examination process in these unprecedented conditions?

Minister of Education in The Bahamas Jeffrey Lloyd who is Chair of the CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development stated the decision to return to the traditional exam process was made during a recent meeting, after careful review from CARICOM’s Ministers of Education.

Dr Wesley, for his part, said there was consensus from all relevant stakeholders and the intention was to give students the best opportunity to succeed under the current circumstances.

Could we not pursue the template adopted by countries like Britain?

According the United Kingdom’s Department of Education website: “No exams took place in summer 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. To enable students to receive qualifications, it was announced that students who were due to sit A level, AS level or GCSE exams this summer would receive a calculated grade.”

For each student, schools and colleges have provided a middle assessment grade for each subject; this is the grade their school or college believes they would most likely to have achieved had exams gone ahead, taking into account a range of evidence including, for example, non-exam assessments and mock exam results.

The British tried to standardize this process using a model that had been developed to arrive at a final grade for A levels and GCEs. However, last August, the UK government decided to abandon the cumbersome process, and instead awarded the middle assessment grade submitted by schools or colleges.

Its Education Department went further, noting that unless there was evidence that a processing error had occurred, these grades will be final.

So why are we in this region prepared to place our children through additional anxiety, possible harm of contracting COVID-19, to undertake in-person examinations? To add to all this, teaching has been interrupted, children have been begging to return to physical classrooms because online learning is too stressful, and teachers are complaining that they have not completed the syllabi for many subjects.

The year 2020 was unprecedented and 2021 is following suit. Why impose the traditional in-person prescription in such extraordinary times?