Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

Ja­maican stu­dents af­fect­ed by Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, who feel un­pre­pared for the May/June 2026 ex­am­i­na­tions, will be al­lowed to re­quest a re­fund or de­fer their ex­am­i­na­tions to the 2027 ses­sion.

Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) Reg­is­trar and CEO Dr Wayne Wes­ley made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing an on­line me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

He said CXC stands with Ja­maica in re­cov­er­ing from the un­prece­dent­ed dev­as­ta­tion and dis­lo­ca­tion caused by the hur­ri­cane in Oc­to­ber.
He added that the coun­cil has es­tab­lished and ap­proved a joint plan of ac­tion with Ja­maica’s Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Skills, Youth and In­for­ma­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 679 schools were af­fect­ed across the is­land, with the most se­vere im­pact record­ed in the west­ern parish­es.

As part of the ac­tion plan, CXC will ad­min­is­ter ex­am­i­na­tions in the nor­mal for­mat for all schools, while of­fer­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty of a mod­i­fied ap­proach for Ja­maica-based can­di­dates whose schools were neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the hur­ri­cane.

With­out any late fee re­quire­ments, CXC said late reg­is­tra­tion has been ac­com­mo­dat­ed for af­fect­ed Ja­maican can­di­dates, and the time­line for sub­mis­sion of School-Based As­sess­ments (SBAs) has been ex­tend­ed to June 15, 2026.

De­spite these ad­just­ments, Wes­ley said Ja­maican can­di­dates will re­ceive their re­sults in Au­gust 2026 along with the rest of the re­gion.

The de­ci­sions were tak­en by CXC’s board of gov­er­nors us­ing its Dis­as­ter and Busi­ness Re­cov­ery Pro­to­col, which gov­erns how the coun­cil re­sponds when­ev­er a par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­try is im­pact­ed by a dis­as­ter.

CXC’s di­rec­tor of op­er­a­tions, Dr Nicole Man­ning, said the ad­just­ments are in­tend­ed to sup­port can­di­dates while en­sur­ing fair­ness.

She ex­plained that schools in Man­ches­ter, St Eliz­a­beth, West­more­land, Hanover, Trelawny, and St Ann will have the flex­i­bil­i­ty to pur­sue ei­ther the full stan­dard as­sess­ment or the mod­i­fied ap­proach. She said con­sid­er­a­tion will al­so be giv­en to schools out­side these parish­es that ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant dev­as­ta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Man­ning, all stu­dents in Ja­maica will re­ceive con­ces­sions for SBAs, along with a hand­book out­lin­ing sub­ject-spe­cif­ic ad­just­ments. How­ev­er, the con­ces­sions ap­ply on­ly to Ja­maica.

She ex­plained that the doc­u­ment de­tails which com­po­nents can be re­moved when can­di­dates are re­do­ing SBAs and pro­vides for a re­duc­tion in lab­o­ra­to­ry re­quire­ments.
Man­ning said sev­en sub­jects will not use the mod­i­fied ap­proach. These in­clude CSEC The­atre Arts, Mu­sic, Home Eco­nom­ics, Hu­man and So­cial Bi­ol­o­gy, and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport, as well as CAPE Per­form­ing Arts.

The first CXC ex­ams for the May/June 2026 ses­sion start on May 4.