By Wilfred Beckles
I am grateful to CXC for the invitation to join in celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and am happy to respond. In what follows I have tried to be faithful to the remit of recounting “the 1979 experience from the Registrar’s perspective” including fact and anecdote. I must thank the CXC Records and Human Resources staff for material which helped to confirm some of my recollections. Some former colleagues, to whom I am also grateful, gave me the benefit of their recollections and allowed me to check mine against theirs.
The success of CXC’s first examinations was, to many across the region, a welcome surprise. To the staff of CXC, whom I had the privilege of leading at the time, it was no surprise. 1979, taken in perspective, was, after all, the culmination of several years of activity under the policy-making guidance of the CXC Council and its Committees and the distinguished Chairmanship, firstly of Sir Roy Marshall, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), and then of Dr Dennis Irvine, Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana. Four of the five years since the start of full operations in 1974 had been spent in active preparation. The final year was therefore one of reviewing progress, assessing deficiencies and weaknesses and of putting in place what would be necessary to clear the final hurdle.
CXC had recruited a core of competent full-time staff under Major Rudolph Daniel, its first Registrar based at Headquarters (HQ) in Barbados, Mrs Irene Walter, Pro Registrar based at the Western Zone Office (WZO) in Jamaica, and for a few short months early in 1978, Mr J Urqhart who served as interim Consultant Registrar until I assumed duties in June, 1978 with Dr Irvine as Chairman.
Soon after the start of operations, CXC took two crucial steps by:
● forging links with a number of well established examining bodies in the United Kingdom (UK), notably the Cambridge University Local Examinations Syndicate, the University of London Schools Examination Board and the Joint Matriculation Board (JMB), and with Educational Testing Services (ETS) of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States of America ( USA) to provide training for staff,
● entering into partnership with funding agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) to secure much needed developmental assistance, and to obtain the services of a number of consultants with technical expertise in assessment, who would work along with CXC’s less experienced staff.
CXC thereafter laid the groundwork towards the first five subjects to be written in 1979. In a series of careful steps the Council proceeded to:
● appoint Subject Panels which, after extensive deliberation and interaction with a School Examinations Committee, prepared and issued syllabuses and specimen question papers;
● appoint Examining Committees of experienced academics and senior teachers who were not involved in the school system to prepare question papers and mark schemes;
● mount item-writing workshops for teachers across the region to prepare draft objective (multiple choice) and essay questions which were then pretested in the schools;
● train, with the help of Chief Examiners from the Cambridge Syndicate, a sufficient cadre of markers. That training involved marking “live” GCE O’ Level scripts written by Caribbean students in the fifth form – CXC’s target age group;
● secure the services of Caribbean and British Moderators to vet its question papers – the Caribbean to ensure the relevance of the questions to the region, the British to ensure the quality of the examining processes and comparability with similar examinations at age 16 plus;
● contract with ETS to supply services in areas in which the Council was deficient until it made its own arrangements – i.e., question paper printing, statistical and data processing services. These would be specific to the 1979 examinations while the Council prepared for its own future capability.
In mid-1977, the Council also commissioned, from an experienced official of the Scottish Certificate of Education Examination Board, an external assessment of its work, of progress made on the groundwork referred to above and of the steps remaining for its first examinations. The report of that assessment expressed satisfaction with the procedures established and progress made. It concluded with cautious optimism that with some additional work and attention to certain areas, CXC could look forward with a measure of confidence, to successful examinations in 1979.
At my interview for the post of Registrar, I had expressed concern that little was known about CXC across the region. That concern was obviously present among CXC stakeholders and clients in early 1978. When the likely candidate entry for 1979 was considered, it emerged that only about 60 percent of the candidates in the region who would normally have entered for O’ Levels had registered to write CXC’s examinations. The Council’s first offerings were likely to be optional in most contributing territories and might not be offered by two of them. Clearly, there was a crisis of confidence in the region.
That external lack of confidence in the CXC product was not reflected internally by the CXC staff nor did they doubt their ability to deliver the examinations. That was my impression when I took up office. Major Daniel’s contract had ended in December, 1977 and the Council’s 1977 Consultant had returned as Consultant Registrar for a part of the period between Major Daniel’s tenure and mine. The Consultant, on his earlier visit, had found staff morale to be ‘surprisingly good considering the difficulties under which they worked.’ – a finding which suggested to me that staff did have a problem of confidence, but of a different kind from that which prevailed externally.
CXC’s first order of business when I assumed duties was therefore one of building confidence both externally and internally. The Council abandoned its earlier idea of a costly public relations campaign by a professional firm. CXC now began an intensive public relations effort to promote its product externally. This included information targeted to educators in the region, to encourage them to embrace new ideas in assessment. For the first time, CXC explained and discussed publicly and in detail, concepts such as: criterion instead of norm-referencing, profiles to indicate strengths and weaknesses; School Based Assessment, a Basic as distinct from General Proficiency and finally table, rather than individual marking.
The homegrown CXC public relations campaign included wide dissemination of a Fact Sheet aimed at prospective users and holders of the CSEC and the general public, as well as regular publication of information bulletins to governments and the media. Two teams of Committee members undertook promotional visits to territories where there had been little publicity previously. Members of National Committees, the Chairman, Registrar, Pro Registrar and staff of both Headquarters and Western Zone Office engaged in radio and television presentations and discussions. In one major territory a specially designed Publicity Committee worked with the Government Information Services in a CXC promotion campaign. One example of the impact of this PR campaign was the comment by a Barbadian resident on the effort by Headquarters staff that “CXC seemed to want to be famous in a few short months.”
CXC also acquired its distinctive logo in 1978. It had been developed by a Barbados firm which had intended to bid for CXC’s PR campaign. An approach to the firm suggested a measure of frustration with CXC and a willingness to part with the logo if the Council was indeed financially unable to meet the cost of a professional campaign. After some candid discussion about the Council’s finances, brief negotiations, and an exchange of letters, the head of the firm decided to release the logo and copyright to the Council for a token “piece of silver”, that is, one Barbados silver dollar. I am convinced that in the end it was his sympathy rather than his frustration with CXC which influenced the head of the firm to make the final, generous decision in CXC’s favour.
Internally, we concentrated on providing additional resources and reviewing what needed to be done towards success in 1979. We also took steps to win the confidence of Council and its Committees by a level of service that commanded attention, by thoroughness in preparation and presentation, and by punctiliousness in following up and reporting on decisions. It was accepted that even if we made mistakes we were responsible for managing the organization and were therefore accountable. Four recollections have stayed with me:
● a remark by Dr Irvine that we seemed to know precisely what to bring to the Council and its Committees and when;
● the comment of a CFTC visitor on the thoroughness, conviction and passion of a presentation by the Pro Registrar;
● a heated discussion on an issue and a committee member’s interjection to the effect that ‘if we substitute our opinions for theirs we can not hold them accountable when things go wrong;’
● a staff meeting in late 1978 and an assessment by our newest recruit that “there are many who think CXC is going to fail but we will prove them wrong.”
A review of our resources towards 1979 found favour with Council which agreed to add a substantial number of staff. CXC’s establishment was increased by 17 in one year – seven senior and eight supporting staff at HQ and two senior staff at WZO. The matter of adequate space for the marking also had to be addressed. In both instances, considerations of time rather than CXC’s long term needs influenced the decision. At HQ, refurbishment of Block A, The Garrison, was preferred to relocating elsewhere and steps were taken to ensure that a first phase of refurbishment was completed by the host government by December and the second phase by April1979. The relocation of WZO from West Kingston to the Jamaica Teachers Association building in Church Street of downtown Kingston, subject to some minor refurbishing and partitioning, was accepted in the circumstances, but was less than ideal. In both instances the decisions were expedient and reflected CXC’s continuing need for custom-built accommodation at both HQ and WZO. By October, 1978, the Report to Council and the School Examinations Committee for the period November, 1977, to September, 1978, reinforced “the optimism expressed in the last two reports by the Registrar that CXC will conduct examinations of which we can be reasonably proud.”
Eventually there were signs that the external crisis of confidence was lessening and a compromise decision could be reached on the matter of candidate entries. I would like to believe that when that decision was made, it too was influenced both by the diplomatic skills of our Chairman and the policy makers’ growing confidence in CXC, but I am unable to recall the exact timing of the decision. While one major territory provided its full candidate population, another decided that its students would be prepared for and would register to write both the Cambridge O’ Levels and the CSEC in the five subjects offered. These decisions alone represented a minimum entry of some 23, 000 candidates. Council willingly agreed to timetable its administration so as to avoid clashes with the overseas Boards in the CXC subjects and was thus assured of a significant population for 1979.
Long before it became a buzzword, ‘multi-tasking’ was part of CXC’s stock in trade. While the focus in late 1978 and early 1979 was on the coming examinations, the normal work of the Council in syllabus development, item production, pretesting, paper setting and marker training for subsequent administrations continued. In addition, two key activities for 1980 were in train. The first was the development of CXC’s own data processing system, acquisition of software and training of staff in the use of scanning equipment towards the 1980 examinations.
The second key activity was highly developmental and related to building the confidence of schools, teachers and potential markers in CXC’s offerings. Beginning in 1978, CXC, in consultation with Pro Vice Chancellor Rudolph Goodridge at the UWI Cave Hill, assisted in drafting a major regional project in Primary and Secondary Education for submission to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The CXC subproject was the Secondary component and focused on supporting CXC syllabuses and training teachers to make better use of them. The subproject was essentially in the area of curriculum development: That is not normally the business of an Examinations Board, but the Council recognized the likely benefit to CXC and gave its blessing to the effort. The result was a four-year project which was funded by USAID in the amount of US$2.6 million and which proved its worth to the region in both curriculum and materials development in subsequent years.
Thirteen of the 14 contributing territories eventually presented some 30, 000 candidates and just under 59, 000 subject entries in the five subjects (English, History, Geography, Integrated Science, and Mathematics) for the 1979 marking. For reasons of security and confidentiality Council decided to implement a “residential marking system” and to establish marking centres in hotel accommodation at both Headquar-ters and Western Zone. Two subjects (English and Integrat-ed Science) were marked in Jamaica, and three (History, Geography, and Mathematics) were marked in Barbados. One experienced staff member from the Examinations Administration Division at HQ was assigned to the WZO for the duration of the marking. The marking itself lasted for two weeks beginning on 16th July. It was a sustained effort by the CXC resource persons made up of Examining Committees appointed since 1977, Markers drawn mainly from the cadre trained between 1975 and 1978 and British Moderators who were chief or senior Examiners from British Boards. These Moderators had been invited to attend the marking so as to assist the Council’s Examining Committees in setting and maintaining standards deemed comparable to GCE O’ Level standards.
To deal with the sheer volume of material, CXC recruited a number of clerical assistants (called “aides” in 1979) to assist the full-time staff. A 1978 marker training and pretesting exercise had identified three persons at HQ and two at WZO to serve as chief aides. These helped to supervise the new recruits who had been selected on the basis of recommendations from senior staff who could attest to their reliability and confidentiality.
The 1978 exercise had also served as a simulation for the “live” 1979 examinations and had taught us a number of valuable lessons. It had revealed delays in both postal and air communications, so regional cooperation was sought from airlines, customs and airport authorities and the scripts and other materials from the various territories reached HQ and WZO offices in good time for the marking to begin on schedule. Marker accommodation arrangements in 1978 had also proved to be unsatisfactory and had caused dissatisfaction. Council therefore decided to accept the cost implications and to house all 1979 resource persons in individual hotel accommodation. CXC made no attempt, as it did in succeeding years, to encourage resource persons to share accommodation.
In Barbados, sequestered hotel marking maintained security of the examinations but did not isolate us from public curiosity. It did not prevent some resource persons from feeding back information to friends outside on our accommodation arrangements. I experienced the speed of the regional grapevine and the power of perception when I was told by a former colleague, resident in Guyana, that CXC appeared to have placed the overseas Moderators in more commodious accommodation than its own Examiners! I noted that in future we should not only be, but be seen to be, evenhanded.
Marking centres usually operate on three principles:
● that no matter how apparently good and careful the planning, there will be times when Murphy’s Law will prevail and solutions will have to be found,
● that every problem is simply a solution in search of a finder and
● that at marking, the organization is virtually turned on its head and all available resources and bodies, from the Chairman to the most junior staff member, are pressed into service.
All three principles applied to both CXC centres in 1979 and we had the benefit of both Chairman and Pro Registrar at the Headquarters Centre, the latter when the marking at the Western Zone centre had been completed. The presence of the Chairman proved to be invaluable since he helped to clarify a policy decision which in turn resolved a major difficulty encountered in one subject.
At Headquarters we experienced a full range of teething problems and I have no doubt that the Western Zone Office centre did the same. There were modifications to previously agreed schedules. This had started with an earlier decision to accept a number of late registrations. In that case, a joint effort by Local Registrars, CXC and ETS to deal with the amendments solved the difficulty, but time had still been lost. There were problems with equipment; provisions for space proved inadequate and had to be adjusted; operations apparently well-planned for the Marking Centre, (e.g., completion or “gridding” of the OMR sheets) had to be shifted to the Headquarters Office; bottlenecks in the flow of information developed and had to be unclogged: One of them developed into a situation that was serious enough to require me to cut what was in danger of becoming a Gordian knot. There were the usual mopping up exercises requiring extra effort, but all concerned at both centres worked long and unsociable hours to complete their tasks.
Scores from the marked question papers were captured using Optical Mark Reader (OMR) or scanner technology. ETS had been contracted to read the OMR sheets completed by clerical staff; to collate the candidates’ marks; feedback statistical information and to provide grades in keeping with grade boundaries approved by the Council’s awarding committees in consultation with the British Moderators. The flow of this information between CXC and ETS was maintained in several ways. The initially completed OMR sheets were collected by the ETS representative from the marking centre in Barbados and added to those collected in Jamaica on his way back to ETS. CXC had also acquired its own set of scanners from National Computer Systems (NCS) of the USA and appointed and trained staff in their use toward self-sufficiency in 1980 and beyond. These too were pressed into service to supplement the ETS effort. Inevitably, after quality control checks had been made, additions or amendments were necessary. Transfer of these was done where possible by cable or telex. In at least one instance, it was necessary for a Headquarters staff member to carry by hand materials and data from the CXC scanners to ETS in the United States.
Teething problems and delays in the data processing schedules between CXC and ETS resulted in the results being issued late, one week behind the planned schedule, on 15th September, 1979. That too was noted for remedial action and a promise was made to issue results in future by the end of August each year – a promise which was kept in subsequent years and has been improved upon each year.
One former staff member has already recounted in an earlier issue of the Caribbean Examiner, her role in accompanying the final examination results which had been processed by ETS. They came from Princeton to Barbados by air in some 29 boxes and she had to sort them all over again on her arrival. She also recalled the famous CXC decision to resort to a rubber date stamp for the 1979 Certificates since the printed Certificates had no date. That stamp alone must have rendered each 1979 certificate a priceless collector’s item!
The 1979 results were first issued to candidates by way of preliminary results slips. Despite the rubber stamp, we had spent some time on the design of the Certificate but omitted to do the same for the results slip. The slips produced by ETS were small in size and a far cry from the present-day slip which contains many features of the Certificate. The inadequacy was soon picked up by one influential school principal who wrote to the Chairman, with a copy to the Registrar, rightly complaining that the quality of the results slips was below CXC’s standard. It therefore fell to me as Registrar to recognize the compliment underlying that reproach, i.e., that CXC had set high standards and was expected to live up to them in all respects. I replied, with a copy to the Chairman, that we had indeed erred but would do better in future.
CXC has clearly been doing better from year to year: I must congratulate the Council and all the staff since the first marking for improving on the 1979 standard over the years. I am grateful to Registrar, Dr Jules and his staff for allowing me this opportunity to say thanks publicly once again to all staff who were involved in the inaugural effort.
The Council itself owes a considerable debt of gratitude to a number of persons and organizations to whose service the successful launch of the 1979 examinations should be attributed:
● Sir Roy Marshall and the CARICOM Secretariat for their sterling work in getting the Council established and for the preparatory work leading up to 1974.
● Dr Dennis Irvine, of blessed memory, for his superb expertise and skills and his stature in regional and international education circles which he put to CXC’s use while serving as Chairman.
● The academics, administrators, educators and government representatives, appointed or co-opted, who believed that the time had come for the region to take charge of its own examinations and who ably gave of their knowledge, experience and guidance on the Council and its Committees.
● The CXC full-time and part-time clerical staff, the CXC consultants and all those resource persons who, whether as Subject Panellists, Examiners, Moderators, Workshop Participants, Item Writers, Markers, National Committee members or Local Registrars, took pride in being associated with CXC’s early development and operations and worked unstintingly to ensure the delivery of valid, reliable and secure examinations and results.
● The UK Examinations Boards which helped to train CXC staff and Markers and organizations and international donor agencies such as CFTC, CIDA, ETS, and USAID who supplied the funding and the resource persons in assessment and data processing to assist and supplement CXC’s own technically trained manpower.
● The contributing governments who supplied the finances, made the initial regional commitment to the examinations and provided support through their officials in a variety of ways, thereby providing the Council with the opportunity to demonstrate to all the world that it was capable of developing and administering new and innovative examinations.
On a final, personal note, my own gratitude must go to my former colleagues at CXC and to one former colleague and mentor at UWI, Mr Rudolph Goodridge, also of blessed memory. He persuaded me to consider a stint at CXC; that became much more – but that is another experience and another story which falls outside my remit.
Mr Wilfred Beckles was the Registrar of CXC when the first CSEC examinations were administered in 1979.
