Advocates propose CXC changes

Two advocacy groups that campaign for student justice are suggesting that efforts to reform education must include a change in the governance of the Barbados-based Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)

The Group of Concerned Parents and the Caribbean Coalition for Exam Redress offered this position just one day after the examining body released this year’s test results.

Commenting on Monday’s official release, parent advocate and spokesperson/coordinator for both groups Paula-Anne Moore was again critical of the way in which the regional exam body conducts its business.

“Communication remains rare and one-way, and the consensus is that education reform needs to include a change in CXC’s governance to make it accord with modern best practice,” Moore said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

She also argued that there needs to be external independent expert regulation to make CXC resilient, accountable, responsive and transparent to its main stakeholders, the tax-paying public, the students and their parents – those whose needs CARICOM and CXC were created to serve,” she contended.

The activist listed five pieces of “evidence” which she suggests show continued issues with quality assurance, responsiveness to student needs, accountability and transparency.

Describing the 2020 CXC grading as a fiasco, Moore claimed that 98 per cent of tens of thousands of disadvantaged students have had their erroneous grades unresolved.She also referred to 2021 as a year of high numbers of erroneous grades and 2022 as having significantly more on test papers.“The 2021 and 2022 exam papers and syllabi were not changed to reflect the pandemic challenges. 2022 exam plans were business as usual until the very last minute, despite the three-year education and other challenges of the pandemic era and at least a year of sustained advocacy for responsiveness,” the spokesperson added.Moore also said that the August 2022 CXC Repositioning Project Seminar included only academics with a “paucity” of other perspectives from parents and students. She is insisting that diversity of input has been proven to enhance decision-making.

Regarding the exam results, the social activist praised the students who obtained their grades and underlined their perseverance with education for a third exam cycle during the pandemic. She also thanked the teachers and all the other stakeholders for their roles in producing the results.

“The feedback thus far is that in 2022 there has been a reduction of problematic grades received vs 2020 and 2021, for which we are grateful. However, there are still significant national reports of misalignment of expected grades and results,” the parent and student advocate declared.

She noted that the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate (CSEC) Maths was particularly problematic, and to a lesser extent, CSEC English A, Social Studies, and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) Caribbean Studies grades.

“It would also be useful for CXC to provide a five-year comparison of CSEC and CAPE preliminary grade results so the grades can be put in the context of pre-COVID performances,” she suggested.

“CXC’s comment on children leaving school without certification was deeply concerning and revelatory of the need for fundamental change to the national education systems, inclusive of addressing remedial education needs,” Moore pointed out.

For her, the link between poor education outcomes, challenges to socio-economic mobility and crime, was clear and that the current gun crime challenges were likely further evidence.

Moore contended that adding yet another “revenue-generating certificate that is of limited utility for job-seeking is considered by some as a plaster on this sore.”

Addressing the regional exam body’s announcement of an overall increase in cheating by some students during exams this year, Moore said: “We find it unfortunate that there was a focus on alleged cheating by students at the CXC results’ ceremony – 23 of approximately 106 000 CSEC students and two out of approximately 25 000 CAPE candidates.

“There was a significant increase in 2022 exam question paper errors reported by principals and teachers, which have far more wide-scale impact and importance to most past and prospective candidates, as this issue raises major concerns re quality assurance. CXC continues to be silent on this issue,” she argued.

Moore noted that while her groups recognise the acceleration of the use of the online modality of education due to COVID’s impact, there is need to ensure that the rollout of e-testing is only done when the national education resources, inclusive of technological infrastructure and interface with CXC, already stressed by the pandemic, can cope.

“We are still awaiting confirmation that those children traumatised by the widespread e-testing challenges in Barbados had their grading adjusted to account for this disadvantage,” she declared.

According to her, the lessons learned from the pandemic experience mark a real transformational opportunity for CXC, and the national and regional education systems.“We revert to pre-pandemic business as usual at our children’s peril. The lasting impact of COVID on education is our ‘new normal’ and we need to examine how responsive CXC’s product offering can be made in recognition of this.”

“If we wish to be strategically competitive globally, our testing and wider education strategy needs to observe what the rest of the world is doing, and adapt accordingly, or CARICOM risks being left behind,” Moore cautioned.