The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is reporting signs of a return to normalcy for students from Barbados and other Caribbean states and its chief executive officer is calling for an end to confrontation between stakeholders, for students’ sake.
Following delays in the sitting of exams, concerns over matriculation to external universities, and challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, Director of Operations Dr Nicole Manning said on Monday that increased use of CXC’s e-testing mechanism and a decline in the level of hardships experienced by students were among the signs that things were going back to normal.
She was addressing a gathering that included CXC’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Wayne Wesley and other top education officials and students in St Lucia, as she presented the official results of the May/June 2022 regional exams at a ceremony streamed live from the Gros Islet Human Resource Development Centre.
Dr Manning reported that there was significant growth in the use of electronic testing by students across the region.
For example, there was a 76 per cent increase in the use of the e-testing process by students who sat the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), despite challenges involving Internet access and power outages which she said did not negatively affect candidates.
The CXC official also disclosed that candidates who took the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams recorded a 24 per cent increase in their usage of the e-testing mechanism, while the figure for candidates who did the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) rose to 22 per cent when compared to the 2021 academic year. “Now this is very good. In particular, we had two territories where we saw from over 100 to over 1 400 candidates utilising the electronic testing. Likewise, [in] another, 100 to over 400. So it tells us that together we are moving in this direction,” she told the audience which included St Lucia’s Minister of Education Shawn Edward.
The senior administrator also pointed to an overall 48 per cent decline in the level of hardships experienced by candidates as another sign that things were returning to normal.
“Hardship is where you may have situations of death in a child’s family, the death sometimes of a parent, candidates may have contracted COVID or any other illness. We do take this into consideration and the candidates are not disadvantaged in any way. We offer what is called an assessed grade and the candidates are graded,” said Dr Manning.
“For CAPE, we saw an increase of 25 per cent and for CSEC, a reduction of 57 per cent – an overall reduction of 48 per cent…another signal of returning to some level of normalcy. This is good for the region as I am sure that we are having more candidates going back to face-to-face for this academic year.”
With this in mind, she appealed to all stakeholders to work together to ensure an improved academic year for 2022-2023.
“We would like to encourage our teachers and candidates, students [and] parents across the region as we look forward to a new academic year, which in my understanding starts today in St Lucia and various times across the region, let us work together…. And, of course, it is the Caribbean Examinations Council’s intention to be meeting with various stakeholder groups, especially over the September, October to November period to ensure that preparation for 2023,” Dr Manning promised.
Dr Wesley, who echoed her sentiments for stakeholders to collaborate in the interest of students and the general
integrity of the exam process, went further to call for the elimination of any form of confrontation.
He said that despite the challenges encountered this year, CXC was able to deliver on its commitment to the region by presenting exam results on Monday, thanks to the combined efforts of all concerned.
“This commitment was possible because of the collective will and efforts of stakeholders within the region…all of us understanding our responsibilities and executing accordingly. We understand that the dreams and aspirations of the young people of this region rest with us and demand that we work collaboratively to support their ambitions. Together we work in moving and supporting this ambition. To do this, we cannot at [any] time seek to be confrontational but, instead, we have to work collaboratively, moving forward, working together,” Dr Wesley contended. The CXC chief declared that the regional exam body does not see itself as an entity in and of itself but as a regional enterprise that is comprised of teachers, local registrars, markers, monitors, parents, the ministries of education, examinations committee, technical advisory committee, and principals.
“We could not have achieved what we have achieved this year without the collective support of all these stakeholders. We would have been working collectively to ensure that confidence and trust returned to the system that is used to validate the performance of our students,” he stated.
The sentiments of Dr Wesley and Dr Manning came on the heels of concern expressed by local and regional teachers’ unions and student and parent advocacy groups about the exam process and the hardships experienced by candidates due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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