JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

CXC reports better CAPE, CSEC performances

by

Carisa Lee
1752 days ago
20200922
Dr Wayne Wesley

Dr Wayne Wesley

BARBADOS NATION

Carisa Lee

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has not neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed stu­dent per­for­mance in the CAPE and CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions, as there has been an over­all in­crease in per­for­mance when com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

Ac­cord­ing to Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions Nicole Man­ning said on Tues­day that there has been an in­crease in grade ones, with 12 per cent of CSEC Math can­di­dates ob­tain­ing grade one when com­pared to eight per cent in 2019 and eleven in 2018.

Some 52 per cent of CSEC stu­dents passed Math, a marked im­prove­ment from 46 per cent in 2019 and a slight im­prove­ment from 49 per cent in 2018.

“The coun­cil is hap­py about that,” Man­ning said dur­ing a vir­tu­al press con­fer­ence an­nounc­ing the re­sults host­ed by CXC from Bar­ba­dos.

She said 72 per cent of stu­dents across the re­gion who sat CAPE Math at­tained ac­cept­able grades.

But Math was not the on­ly sub­ject where stu­dents at­tained im­proved grades.

Ac­cord­ing to Man­ning, stu­dents showed a slight im­prove­ment for CSEC Eng­lish with 82 per cent at­tain­ing an ac­cept­able grade and 23 per cent re­ceiv­ing grade one. There were al­so slight im­prove­ments in oth­er sub­jects such as Sci­ences, So­cial Stud­ies and His­to­ry.

“We con­tin­ue to en­cour­age the can­di­dates who are prepar­ing this year to en­sure that they per­form as well,” Man­ning said.

The re­gion an­nounced its first case of COVID-19 back in March and since then many events had to be post­poned and changes made to fa­cil­i­tate class­es and ex­ams. One im­me­di­ate change was the in­tro­duc­tion of vir­tu­al class­es for stu­dents, as schools were phys­i­cal­ly closed. Some of these stu­dents had to pre­pare for ex­ams in May/June 2020, a date that was lat­er pushed back to Ju­ly with some changes to the ex­am sched­ule and for­mat.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion had called for the ex­am to be staged in Sep­tem­ber and slammed the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion for not post­pon­ing the ex­ams.

But on Tues­day, CXC Reg­is­trar and CEO Dr Wayne Wes­ley said he was hap­py the ex­am took place when it did.

“Giv­en what has hap­pened in oth­er parts of the world we should be proud,” Wes­ley said.

“We have been able to com­plete the process and be ready for the pre­sen­ta­tion this morn­ing.”

Shar­ing the same view was Bar­ba­dos’ Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Tech­no­log­i­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Train­ing San­tia Brad­shaw, who said CXC took a dif­fer­ent ap­proach and they must be ap­plaud­ed.

Brad­shaw told those watch­ing across the re­gion that while COVID-19 has brought its chal­lenges, they pushed ahead with CSEC and CAPE to en­sure no child was left be­hind and to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of the ex­ams.

“High stakes ex­ams were can­celled across the world,” Brad­shaw said.

CXC will re­lease the of­fi­cial re­sults to var­i­ous ed­u­ca­tion min­istries across the re­gion lat­er Tues­day.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored