An­ge­lo Je­didi­ah

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

For an­oth­er year, the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) has been crit­i­cised for be­ing ‘fa­tal­ly flawed’ in the struc­tur­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tion of ex­ams fol­low­ing a se­ries of re­port­ed is­sues across the re­gion.

In an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme, Caribbean Coali­tion for Ed­u­ca­tion Re­dress spokes­woman Paula-Anne Moore said there is some­thing fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong with the gov­er­nance of CXC by the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) body, sug­gest­ing that an over­haul of the ex­am­i­na­tion coun­cil is des­per­ate­ly need­ed. 

“The chil­dren are de­mor­alised, frus­trat­ed, dis­gust­ed by the lack of care and con­cern that is be­ing demon­strat­ed,” Moore said. 

Since the start of the May-June 2024 ex­am pe­ri­od, sev­er­al is­sues have been raised, such as the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) Prin­ci­ples of Ac­counts Pa­per II, at un­named re­gion­al cen­tres. CXC has an­nounced that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, dis­crep­an­cies with this year’s Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) Chem­istry Pa­per II have been high­light­ed. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, 25 to 30 per cent of ex­am ques­tions were un­re­lat­ed to CXC’s pre­scribed list of ob­jec­tives for the unit.

In re­sponse, an on­line pe­ti­tion has been launched, sup­port­ed by over 2500 teach­ers and stu­dents de­mand­ing a re-ad­just­ment of the mark­ing cri­te­ria for this year’s ex­ams. 

“There are chal­lenges but year af­ter year we have the same is­sue again. It is not good enough. Col­lec­tive­ly we are let­ting down our chil­dren. And frankly, par­ents, teach­ers, gov­ern­ments and CXC, we are all re­spon­si­ble for the men­tal dam­age and the harm to ed­u­ca­tion and ca­reer prospects we are per­pet­u­at­ing against our chil­dren,” Moore said. 

Moore, who is al­so a par­ent ad­vo­cate from Bar­ba­dos claimed that de­spite con­cerns be­ing raised by the pub­lic year­ly, CXC con­tin­ues to ig­nore their pleas. This, she adds, has prompt­ed some to opt out of the re­gion’s ex­am process. Some, strong­ly plead­ing for CXC to be ‘scrapped’ and for the re­in­stal­ment of Cam­bridge ex­ams through­out the re­gion.

“Peo­ple have said, 'Enough is enough.' Fifty years af­ter CXC, they want a new or­gan­i­sa­tion, they want to go back to Cam­bridge. Par­ents that can af­ford it, have left the pub­lic school sec­tor and they’ve gone pri­vate to oth­er ex­am bod­ies,” she said.

Moore con­tin­ued her call for there to be an in­de­pen­dent re­view of the ex­am­in­ing body as well as a pan­el to en­sure CXC fol­lows glob­al best prac­tices for ad­min­is­ter­ing ex­ams.

But she adds that this can’t hap­pen if CARI­COM gov­ern­ments do not in­ter­vene and al­low CXC to have ‘diplo­mat­ic im­mu­ni­ty.’ 

“I per­son­al­ly, as a proud CARI­COM cit­i­zen would like our in­dige­nous body to re­main and do bet­ter. But it seems as if they are un­will­ing or per­haps un­able to change course, ad­mit there is a prob­lem and fix the prob­lem.”