CXC Extends Examination Registration Deadline

The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has extended the deadline for candidates to register for its May/June 2010 CAPE and CSEC examinations by two weeks.{{more}}

This decision was made following consultations with stakeholders in CXC Participating Territories, some of whom have encountered challenges with the new Online Registration System (ORS).

The ORS allows for schools to register candidates online and was introduced in May this year. The ORS replaces the Student Information Registration System, which was computer-based but not web-based; however, the user interface for both systems is very similar.

Over the last three weeks, the Council received several complaints from schools and some ministries of education about the functioning of the ORS. This prompted the Council to extend the deadline to facilitate schools and ministries of education registering their candidates.

Two of the major challenges users faced were bandwidth availability and bottleneck at peak period of use.

The Council has worked with its Internet Service Provider to expand the bandwidth. To alleviate some of the bottlenecks, an additional web server was deployed, and the Council is prepared to deploy additional back-end servers if required to address any further bottle neck issues.

The Council has also tuned the database queries to improve the performance of the system, and as of the weekend of November 21 and 22 November, the number of persons experiencing challenges with the system had reduced significantly.

Though the application may be intuitive, training videos have been made available for download from CXC’s website at www.cxc.org which instructs users in the proper use of the software. The Council urges teachers and principals to make use of the video.

The Council re-assures its stakeholders that it is doing everything to minimize the challenges associated with the ORS and is confident that when the hurdles are ironed out, the ORS will make candidate registration a smooth and efficient process.