CXC students get reprieve from online testing at some schools

Calls for online testing in this year’s Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)-administered exams to be discontinued have been answered, according to the spokesperson and coordinator of the Group of Concerned Parents of Barbados.

Paula-Anne Moore told Barbados TODAY that after her group raised issues with the e-testing in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training (METVT) acted on their concerns.

“They have been receptive to our observations of challenges re e-testing and we understand schools with challenges have reverted to paper-based exams,” she said.

Moore added that the e-testing trauma experienced last week may have impacted the children’s exam performance negatively, but this was also being addressed by education officials.

“We are assured that the METVT will advocate to CXC so that the children’s grades will be compassionately assessed by CXC,” she told Barbados TODAY.

Earlier this week, Moore called on the Ministry of Education to launch an investigation into the flawed examination process after students experienced several challenges.

According to her, at one school there were reports of some students being given only five minutes to complete Maths CSEC Paper 1, due to e-testing problems, while there were delays in exams due to ICT problems to the extent that students had to leave exams before they completed the paper.

Moore also pointed out that the WiFi bandwidth at some schools was insufficient to cope with the load of e-testing. She said the problem was further exacerbated when school was otherwise conducting online or hybrid school.

Additionally, they were reports of flawed exam questions for CAPE Chemistry, Pure Maths, CSEC Maths and Additional Maths.

Moore, who is also the spokesperson for the Caribbean Coalition for Exam Redress, contended that based on the reported challenges, “e-testing was apparently done before the schools’ individual ICT capabilities and CXC server had the optimal system checks”.

“We warned of potential problems months ago re e-testing in view of challenges in some schools’ ICT capabilities and lack of devices identified during online and hybrid school,

“As a result, this additional layer of stress on students, on top of the pandemic-related stress, would disadvantage all students – some more than others. We regret that Barbados went ahead with such widescale e-testing, when Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica refused to do so, citing lack of ICT capabilities at most schools.”

Moore underscored that there was not much more children could take and she chided the public for being silent on the matter.

“How long will we allow fear and retribution and retaliation paralyse and muzzle us from advocating for justice for our own children?” she questioned. (SD)