The registrar and a team from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) completed a three-day visit here on Friday, June 24, where they interacted with personnel from the Ministry of Education, heads of educational institutions and stakeholders on a set of new initiatives.{{more}}

Among the areas where the team made presentations included the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC), Information and Communication and Technology, changes in Technical and Vocational Education, the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination Associate Degree programme, the role of assessment in performance improvement and the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA).

Dr. Didacus Jules, CXC’s Registrar, was accompanied to St.Vincent and the Grenadines by Dr.Gordon Harewood, Examinations Development and Production Division (EDPD) and Maureen Grazette, Assistant Registrar (EDPD).

The overall objective of the visit was to provide practitioners with first-hand information on new initiatives while affording those here the opportunity to seek clarification and provide feedback on issues relating to the Council’s transformations in the education sector.

According to Dr. Jules, over the years CXC has become a well-established brand not just in the region, but has also gained international recognition.

“We are planning to build on that platform and that legacy,” he said.

The proposed changes were in the context that we were living in different times.

He added that the changes were in keeping with the examining body’s mandate to conduct exams that it deems appropriate.

For example, Jules said that he heard some people raise the issue with the CPEA.

“People are saying why is CXC getting into primary education?” he said, adding that there was the fallacy in people’s thinking that CXC was a secondary examining body only.

“But it is testimony to the founding fathers and mothers of CXC that they didn’t set it up as just a replacement for Cambridge/GCE,” Jules explained.

Dr. Gordon Harewood further explained that CXC now spanned the entire schooling system from primary right through to the first year at university, now that it has gone over to the primary school system.

“I am very excited about that,” he said, adding that the proposed CPEA offered a significant opportunity for teacher and student development.

“I say this with no reservation – it’s a totally new model,” Harewood continued.

Grazette also contended that the new CPEA initiative was exciting, because as a former teacher, she sees it as a new way of giving justice to students not being served well by the current system.

She explained that the CPEA was made up of four elements, which included knowledge, behaviour and attitude.

Grazette further explained that the advantage that the new system would have over the existing common entrance exams was that students would acquire skills that would assist them throughout their secondary school education.

One such skill was the ability to do research and work in peer groups.

The proposed Exit Assessment also included more parental interaction with students and the school, Grazette added.

The pilot Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment program is expected to be implemented in three territories as early as the new school year. (DD)