The Ministry of Education (MoE) yesterday announced that following complaints by the schools that students did not receive a grade for the 2020 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has amended the results for 11 schools.
The changed results reflect grades from I to V for the specific subject for each student whose grade has been revisited as requested by the MoE.
Minister of Education Priya Manickchand had engaged CXC to review the “ungraded” and unsatisfactory results and the Council agreed. It has since reviewed the submissions made by MoE for both examinations. Twenty (20) schools had received ungraded results in 15 CSEC and CAPE subject areas. The CSEC subjects that were affected are: English A, Mathematics, Principles of Business, Office Administration, Human & Social Biology, Theatre Arts, Physical Education & Sports, and Economics. The CAPE subjects that were affected are: Geography Unit 1, Caribbean Studies, Agricultural Science, Environmental Science, Accounting Unit 1 & 2, Law Unit 1, and Pure Mathematics Unit 1 & 2.
Following this review, 11 of the 20 schools where students received the “ungraded” results have since received results with grades. These schools are: Port Kaituma Secondary, Patentia Secondary, Annandale Secondary, New Amsterdam Secondary, Paramakatoi Secondary, Harmony Secondary, Carmel Secondary, Central High School, The Bishops’ High School, Leguan Secondary School and Mahaicony Secondary School.
According to a press release issued by the ministry yesterday, CXC has committed to providing an update on the outstanding nine schools as soon as possible. When contacted for a comment, Manickchand told Stabroek News that the ministry would not requesting that each student’s grade is revisited and that it only looked into the schools which had subjects listed as “ungraded” for most students. “Every year you have students who are unhappy with their results. This year will be no different. So we looked at where there were large numbers of persons with “ungraded” as their result,” Manickchand said.
Regarding the unsatisfactory results for both CSEC and CAPE, the students will have to contact CXC and pay to have their grades reviewed. Manickchand disclosed that the council has indicated that individual students have approached CXC to review grades in a number of subject areas at both the CSEC and CAPE level and that the MoE hopes that these requests by students would be addressed speedily.
Twenty four (24) schools have expressed dissatisfaction with the grades awarded for the CSEC examination in twenty (20) subject areas, while six schools have submitted requests for a review of unsatisfactory results in seven CAPE subject areas.
Manickchand also said that a number of factors contributed to candidates’ results being recorded as ungraded and further explained that CXC reported to the Ministry that some School Based Assessments (SBAs) for students were not submitted by teachers to the examination body on time. This would have caused the students grades to drop. The Ministry has “immediately begun to revert to pre-existing systems” to prevent a reoccurrence, the MoE’s statement said. Manickchand further assured that very tight monitoring of submission of SBAs will be done to ensure that this does not reoccur.
On September 22, the CSEC and CAPE results were released to candidates across the Caribbean. These grades were met with much dissatisfaction due the apparent poor grading of students. Education Ministries from Caribbean countries raised concerns over this but CXC insisted that the results reflected the students’ performance at the 2020 exam. Just two days after the results were released, Manickchand raised concern over what seems to be discrepancies with the grades that were awarded to students across the country in particular subject areas.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the CXC examinations were held in July/August period rather than its usual May/June, and the council changed its examination strategy as it claimed to have recognised the impact the virus had on the education system and its regional examination. The council had assured that the new exam structure would provide students with valid grades that are comparable to previous years. While the decision was met with uncertainty by students, teachers and parents, the council went ahead with the administration of the exams. It made the policy decision to offer a modified examination process where at least one common paper (Multiple Choice Assessments), School Based Assessments (SBAs) and Paper 032s (alternative to SBA) for private candidates will be used instead of the format used in previous years, which included a Paper II. Hence, the final grades would be awarded based on the moderated SBAs and Multiple Choice Papers.
