CPEA scheduled for Friday

The 1,829 students who make up the second cohort of local Grade Six students sitting the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA), will be examined this Friday, May 15, at 17 centres in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The CPEA is an examination administered by the Caribbean Examinations Council for students exiting the primary cycle of their education.{{more}}

A release from chief education officer Lou-Anne Gilchrist said the students will sit multiple choice papers in Mathematics, English and Science as their final exam.

“They have all completed the first part of their assessment – the internal assessment (School Based Assessment) – and their scores and the samples of their work have been forwarded to and received by the Caribbean Examinations Council,” Gilchrist said.

“The structure of the assessment makes it possible for students to earn a total of 40 per cent of their final score through the internal assessment. During the month of March, education officers conducted the final quality assurance assessment of students’ work and of their teachers’ scoring in order to ensure that the quality standards demanded were met,” the chief education officer said.

The multiple choice component of the assessment will comprise 60 per cent of their final score. Each multiple choice paper consists of 50 items. The time allocated per paper is 75 minutes.

The Grade Six Reading Assessment, which is a national initiative, will be conducted internally by the Ministry of Education during the period May to June 2015. The Reading Assessment is diagnostic in nature and the findings are used by the secondary schools to determine the most appropriate strategies to be employed in effectively delivering instruction to those students identified as having deficits.

Of the 1,829 students who have been registered for this year’s exam, there are 905 females and 924 males.

Last year, 912 females and 1,022 males made up the total of 1934 students who wrote the exam.

The overall pass rate for the CPEA in 2014 was 78.08 per cent. The pass rate by sex was 69.67 per cent for males and 87.50 per cent for females. The number of students placed into secondary schools in 2014 was 1934, which represents all of the students who wrote the exam.

The release from Gilchrist said placement of all students who write the exam is in conformity with the policy of Universal Access to Secondary Education.

“The Ministry of Education is hopeful that the students will perform creditably in the multiple choice component of the CPEA and wishes to indicate that multiple choice items, contrary to the belief held by many, do assess students’ competence at all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. That is to say that competencies tested range from simple knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis to the complex skill of evaluation. Further, such skills and the accompanying literacies have all been developed and assessed during the year through regular classroom activities and the internally assessed components of the CPEA,” Gilchrist said.

The results of the CPEA are expected to be published by the middle of June. The Ministry of Education will conduct the secondary school placement exercise as usual.

“The implementation of the CPEA was monitored by the Ministry of Education Officers following extensive training in 2013 of education officers, teachers and head teachers by officers of the Caribbean Examinations Council and internally conducted training of teachers by education officers. The training of teachers by education officers for the successful performance of students is ongoing, and teachers are constantly monitored and supported to ensure that the tasks given to students are of the required standard and that the scores awarded are faithful to the rubrics and are awarded fairly and in a consistent manner.

“Education officers have begun training the teachers of Grade Five, so that work on the students’ projects and writing portfolios can begin, thus allowing students enough time to conduct their research and refine their reading, writing, analytical and presentation skills. One important feature of the CPEA is that students are given multiple opportunities to review and revise their work, incorporating the teachers’ feedback, so as to achieve mastery of curriculum content, of the requisite skills and of multiple literacies. The project work will begin this term, but will not conclude until students reach Grade Six, since that is the stage at which they will be deemed to have attained the cognitive skills appropriate to their level of development.

“The Minister of Education wishes all students success in their examination and expresses her gratitude to the head teachers, teachers and stakeholders for their dedication to all students.”

CPEA – note to parents

(1) Parents are to ensure that children get a full night’s rest before the examination and a full breakfast on the morning of the examination.

(2) Students are to arrive at the examination centres by 8:15 a.m.

(3) Students are to use 3B pencils for filling in their answers.

(4) Appropriate arrangements are to be made for students to have their lunch close to their examination centres.