An­na-Lisa Paul

The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) is trans­form­ing it­self in­to a more dig­i­tal­ly-co­he­sive or­gan­i­sa­tion, pro­vid­ing re­al-time ac­cess to rel­e­vant da­ta and proven ed­u­ca­tion­al ser­vices.

Speak­ing dur­ing the of­fi­cial launch of the CXC Da­ta In­tel­li­gence Gate­way On­line Plat­form (CDIG) at the Cam­pus Plaza, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, CXC chair­man, Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a ma­jor and his­tor­i­cal un­der­tak­ing.

He said, “This is all part of a grand vi­sion to en­able CXC to be­come a dig­i­tal­ly trans­formed en­ter­prise.”

CDIG is a cen­tral web­site dis­play­ing var­i­ous cat­e­gories of in­for­ma­tion, pro­vid­ing re­gion­al min­istries of ed­u­ca­tion, uni­ver­si­ties and cor­po­rate en­ti­ties ac­cess to unique stu­dent in­for­ma­tion they may re­quire for grad­ing, the award of schol­ar­ships and the dis­burse­ment of bur­saries.

In his on­line pre­sen­ta­tion, Beck­les said no in­sti­tu­tion could have pros­pered dur­ing the past two years with­out em­brac­ing the dig­i­tal cul­ture.

Say­ing CXC’s 2020 strate­gic de­vel­op­ment plan recog­nised the need for ur­gent dig­i­tal im­prove­ments to guide man­age­ment and en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of in­sti­tu­tions, Beck­les said CDIG would pro­vide ac­cess to rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to aid in re­search, pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment and mea­sure im­pact as­sess­ment.

He re­ferred to the on­line plat­form as the ro­bust ar­chi­tec­ture which would help to build trust and con­fi­dence and pre­serve da­ta in­tegri­ty.

Deputy Chief Dig­i­tal Of­fi­cer in the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Wayne Nakhid, agreed CXC cus­tomers would get a true end-to-end ser­vice.

“This is the Holy Grail of E-ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those of us who have worked in the ICT space and this rep­re­sents CXC’s quest to­wards be­com­ing a dig­i­tal­ly trans­formed en­ter­prise,” Nakhid said.

Claim­ing dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion has had a pro­found im­pact on the way peo­ple live and in­ter­act now, Nakhid said T&T’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion was cen­tered around build­ing a dig­i­tal so­ci­ety, pro­mot­ing a dig­i­tal econ­o­my and es­tab­lish­ing a dig­i­tal gov­ern­ment.

He re­vealed, “In a re­cent study, the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion sur­veyed over 100 key ser­vices and found on­ly a few could be con­sid­ered end-to-end, as the vast ma­jor­i­ty were ei­ther in­for­ma­tion­al or fa­cil­i­tat­ed on­ly a part of the trans­ac­tion.”

Nakhid said the con­nect­ed-Ari­ma ini­tia­tive would be the test­ed for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in T&T.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said CDIG was aimed at im­prov­ing and sup­port­ing mul­ti-stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Point­ing out that in T&T, “Like every oth­er coun­try of the world…a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion of the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor is stu­dent re­cov­ery from learn­ing loss,” the min­is­ter said ac­cess to da­ta via the CDIG would prove valu­able in the as­sess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and plan­ning process­es.

Say­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion was more than a catch­phrase, CXC Reg­is­trar and CEO Dr Wayne Wes­ley said af­ter 50 years of serv­ing the re­gion, “CXC is trans­form­ing for greater re­gion­al im­pact.”

CXC Pro-Reg­is­trar and Deputy CEO, Dr Ed­uar­do R Ali, said as the re­gion­al ed­u­ca­tion­al body charged with de­vel­op­ing 21st-cen­tu­ry skills and com­pe­ten­cies, CDIG was one step clos­er to repo­si­tion­ing CXC as a dig­i­tal­ly com­pet­i­tive and re­spon­sive body with­in a struc­tured part­ner­ship sys­tem. He said it was a sys­tem pred­i­cat­ed on re­li­able and qual­i­ty da­ta.

An­nu­al grades are to be pre­sent­ed on the web­site for pub­lic ac­cess, while user ac­cess to na­tion­al and re­gion­al stu­dent da­ta will be re­strict­ed to on­ly au­tho­rised stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to award­ing schol­ar­ships and bur­saries.

Ali ex­plained that cor­po­rate ac­cess to da­ta will al­so be re­strict­ed and dri­ven by spe­cial agree­ments, while in­di­vid­ual re­searchers will al­so need eth­i­cal clear­ance which will come with a fee—as those look­ing at trends to use in re­ports/pa­pers be­ing pub­lished will need spe­cial per­mis­sion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly agreed many as­pects of life had com­plete­ly changed and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion had played an in­te­gral role in how peo­ple learn, in­ter­act, work and even view en­ter­tain­ment.

“No one is the same,” she said, adding that needs, wants and ex­pec­ta­tions had al­so changed.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic forced au­thor­i­ties to dig deep to find so­lu­tions and as the min­is­ter point­ed out, in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem there was no hid­ing be­hind school walls as par­ents and stake­hold­ers asked un­com­fort­able ques­tions and de­mand­ed an­swers.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “In T&T, like every oth­er coun­try of the world…a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion of the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor is stu­dent re­cov­ery from learn­ing loss.”

Ap­plaud­ing the launch of the CDIG plat­form, which she be­lieves will pro­vide valu­able da­ta in the as­sess­ment, mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and plan­ning, she said T&T will not be dis­tract­ed from its quest to en­sure fu­ture gen­er­a­tions are pre­pared to move for­ward in the ar­eas of dig­i­tal in­tel­li­gence and trans­for­ma­tion.

As stu­dents get ready to head back to school on April 19, Gads­by-Dol­ly praised their re­silience dur­ing the past two years. She added that it was now in­cum­bent up­on them to ho­n­our the brav­ery of all stu­dents in terms of care­ful plan­ning and adopt­ing da­ta-dri­ven analy­ses to help im­prove ed­u­ca­tion over­all.

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS