The Caribbean Examinat-ions Council (CXC) has still not finalized the grades for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) examinations this year.
In a statement issued yesterday the council asked for patience while stating that it “continues to work assiduously to complete Queries and Requests for Reviews, in order to finalise grades.” No date has yet been provided for the completion of this process.
“We understand the psychosocial impact of the extended COVID-19 related circumstances and have heard the concerns of Ministry officials, teachers, parents and students. These concerns are being addressed with further consideration of the hardships that students and their parents may have been experiencing,” CXC stated.
It explained that in addition to the Requests for Reviews which have been submitted, the council has been reviewing borderline cases in accordance with the Independent Review Team (IRT) Report.
Particular attention is being accorded to single grade changes, as well as the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
They have claimed that this approach will help to expedite the process of reviews.
Notably the Council has still not provided a date for completion of the process stating instead that it will be completed “shortly”.
“We are committed to a thorough and speedy completion of the review process as we understand that the wait has been long for many…we request your continued patience and support as we carefully navigate this challenging period,” the statement concluded.
Following concerns across the region about this year’s results, CXC announced that an Independent Review Team had found its testing, marking and grading during the 2020 Examination cycle to be “technically sound and quality assured”.
It however implemented a series of measures to address the crisis created by “the variance” between the expected and actual performance of students.
One of these measures was the creation of an online portal to expedite the handling of reviews and queries from students who wrote the exams. This portal was expected to lead to responses within days but weeks later many students are no closer to answers.
