Dear Editor,
As a 17-year-old Lower Sixth student of Queen’s College, Guyana, I have noted with avid interest and slight disbelief the occurrences of the recent few months, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic and the response of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) in this regard. I have heard many positions debated by my elders, teachers and peers; however, all opinions and beliefs I state in this letter are my own.
CXC, as many of you know, has proposed a revised exam structure, consisting of a paper 1 and SBA for most subjects, but including a paper 2 in others where the syllabus is not fully covered by these two components alone. Many arguments have been proposed against this, most of them valid, which I will not repeat here. I do however want to point out that the original purpose of having a revised exam format was (in CXC’s words) “to yield valid grades and minimise the disruption to the education system”. It is with surprise then, that I note that results from this ‘examination’ would not be released until September, and therefore after the start of the 2020/21 school year, and not in time for the start of the next university semester. If this is the case, then I must ask why we do not have the paper 2 examination as was originally planned, even if it is at a later date, as this will have no bearing on university intake as long as results are released before the January semester. Why is CXC so resolute in its admission of only a paper one examination when it no longer yields any tangible benefit?
Continuing on the same tack of university intake, I must raise the question of credibility. One of the main concerns among my peers has been that this exam will not be seen as credible by most universities, and therefore is not worth writing. CXC for their part have allied with the University of the West Indies (UWI) to determine this September’s university intake by using results of Cape 1 and past marks, completely nullifying the purpose of the July examination. If the region’s premier university will not accept the results of this examination:
a) Why hold them in the first place? (Why not cancel exams like the rest of the world??)
b) How can any university outside the Caribbean be expected to do so?
In the face of overwhelming backlash against its proposal, from (to name a few) the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPPS), the National Secondary Students’ Council of Jamaica (NSSC), the Jamaica Teacher’s Association (JTA), the Barbados Teachers’ Union (BTU), the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), and the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), as well as teachers and students themselves, CXC’s response has been appallingly poor. A single web seminar was held, which I myself attended. I posted 10 questions, 2 of which were unsatisfactorily answered, and the rest of which were seemingly ignored, and the questions that were answered in their Questions and Answers segment were laughably moronic. The level of incompetence was such that in multiple instances questions such as “Where will exams be written?” were answered with “Yes”. I think that speaks for itself.
As a student, I can confidently state knowing that many others share this sentiment, that students are tired. We are fatigued, we are exhausted, weary, drained, and most of all fed up. Whichever way you put it, students as a whole are tired of this whole exam affair. There was a period of uncertainty when the outbreak first emerged in which no one knew whether exams would or would not take place. For a student, this was an especially turbulent time. A dilemma presented itself: Do you break or do you study? But if you break, where do you find the resolve to start studying again, or if you study, when do you break? There is no right answer. Couple this with being bombarded with online articles detailing much more productive pastimes like ’10 things to do during quarantine’ and with the knowledge that the US and UK have called their exams off completely for the year, and the CXC exams have begun to feel like more of a restriction on freedom – a cross to bear for the Caribbean alone. Now, with the scheduling of examinations for July, every teacher, lessons teacher and lab technician has re-emerged hosting online classes and dropping assignments, projects and research essays, only obfuscating the issue further.
Let us discuss online classes from a student’s perspective:
1) Educators seem to share the belief that because students are at home, they are always free. This is not true. It is difficult for many of us to find a quiet place to work at home, especially for hours at a time. Being around our families all the time is a difficult situation for many of us, and bloated class and work schedules do not help.
2) It is so much more difficult to pay attention online than in a regular class. In this age of shortening attention spans, online classes often need repeating and re-watching, and many teachers simply do not cater for this.
3) WIFI connections are unreliable, for those of us that even have it at all. CXC’s proposal to go digital has marginalised many, and teachers can report that they are seeing low and infrequent attendance for most, if not all classes.
Finally, I wish to speak about COVID-19. This pandemic is a greater threat than it ever has been. As of writing, there have been over 4.3 million confirmed cases worldwide. Regionally, Trinidad and Tobago has 116 cases. Barbados has 84, Guyana has 113, and Jamaica weighs in with a whopping 507. We do not have a vaccine. Research has shown that we do not even have a lengthy period of herd immunity. The only strategy that has been shown to work is quarantining and contact tracing those that do have the virus. I do not know if CXC reviews the graphs showing the progress of this disease, but I do. Daily. I have no less than 6 graph tracking sites open as I write this letter. CXC has slated exams for July. That would mean breaking, or ending lockdown and returning to school to write exams. I also do not know what data this timeframe is based upon, but it cannot be the same graphs that I am looking at here on my desktop, because according to this, Jamaica has seen exponential growth in its number of cases, and Guyana is increasing fast. The numbers only increase. And yet, CXC would have us return to normalcy. That is folly, that is fallacy and is pure (for want of a better word) dotishness! CXC wishes us to risk our health, our very being, for an exam that is not only questionable, but devoid of structure and credibility.
I will end this letter with a statement from one of my colleagues, who shall remain unnamed:
“CXC have exposed themselves as an organization that values their income more than the integrity of their business and health and safety of stakeholders.”
I beg CXC to reconsider their proposal.
Yours faithfully,
Vijay Sharma
