Commending CXC as it celebrates successes and introduces CTEC

This is a period of heightened excitement and interest in local and regional academic circles with the release of the results of the 2026 Caribbean Certificate of Education (CXC) examinations. We see the various territories touting the successes of students from Guyana to Jamaica. Many are awed to read of students in Guyana who had sat and obtained up to 30 passes at these examinations.

That is not likely to be the case here in St.Vincent and The Grenadine as students simply do not write so many subject disciplines. We, however, celebrate all the students who have been successful in their examinations. We expect that they all would anticipate going beyond this level with their sights set on eventually pursuing higher education of some kind in the careers they would choose. Such have been the changes made over the past decades with the much touted, and often vilified Education Revolution, that the options available to our young people today are wide and varied. Indeed, the sky is the limit.

Results announced by the CXC on August 18, 2026, showed an encouraging regional Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Mathematics pass rate increase to 42%. This represented an encouraging 4-percentage point improvement in this subject area. However there was an overall CSEC performance rate of 72.18%. At the same time the regional Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) registered a rise in acceptable grades to 93.52%. We, therefore congratulate the CXC as an authentic home-grown institution for the continued improvements being demonstrated.

We note too that the CXC continues to explore new modes of examinations across our region. During the CXC’s ceremony in Anguilla on Tuesday, the organization’s CEO Dr Wayne Wesley, announced a new modular qualification called the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC). He explained that this will have a Modular and Flexible Structure as opposed to being an “all or nothing” examination sitting. This way the CXC is breaking down traditional syllabuses into individual modules. The idea being that students can earn micro-credentials in a step by step manner so that over time they can complete a full qualification.

This modality also permits Flexible Learning Paces on different tracks. There will be an advanced or accelerated track, a general two-year track and an individualized, extended track based on individual learning styles and paces. In preparation for this, the CXC has in fact already carried out a successful pilot in CTEC Mathematics which was rolled out for the May-June 2026 examination cycle.

We can only congratulate the CXC on their continued approaches toward ensuring the standards of examining our students continues.

The pilot had been introduced to tackle what Dr Wesley called “the perennial under performance of students” in mathematics which for many Caribbean students has been their weakest subject. The CXC registrar and CEO revealed that there had been an 88 per cent pass rate among the 2,535 candidates who sat the CTEC across the CARICOM region during the May-June sitting. He reported a total of 2,230 passes which he qualified as “highly successful.”

But while the CXC celebrated the general success across the region at this years’ examination results, it flagged what was termed a “sharp increase” in examination irregularities, totalling 128 reported cases across CSEC and CAPE, highlighting unauthorized devices, collusion, and AI misuse.

With the growing popularity of AI, this is hardly surprising and is surely going to present new challenges for examiners across the region, including the CXC. As we embrace the new technologies we must expect a tendency to abuse where students can get away with it, hence necessary steps must be instituted with urgency to address what may become a nightmare.

Overall though, we look on the brighter side that overall our results across the region have trended upward.