The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) recently granted conditional approval for the implementation of the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) in secondary schools across Guyana.
This was disclosed in a Ministry of Education (MoE) release yesterday which also informed that this approval follows a pre-readiness audit conducted last August in which Guyana obtained an overall compliance rating of 75 per cent. It added that while this indicates a strong level of compliance with most of the requirements, it is nevertheless five per cent below the minimum compliance level rate of 80 per cent for full approval to be granted.
However, Assistant Chief Education Officer -Technical, Marcia Paddy, has assured “that the required corrective actions are being done to achieve full compliance.” She noted that the implementation of CVQ in secondary schools is in keeping with the Ministry of Education’s commitment to ensuring that “all students are offered a secondary-level education that will make them academically and economically viable.” Further, Paddy pointed out that having completed a pilot of CVQ, it has become evident that the expansion of the programme is the next step.
According to the release, the assessment focussed on evaluating the readiness of the institutions to deliver the regional occupational standards and to implement the CXC quality assurance criteria in training candidates pursuing programmes for CVQ certification.
It also noted that in 2021, when the CVQ certification was originally introduced in eight secondary schools in Guyana, approximately 119 students registered in four areas: commercial food preparation, furniture making, fabric decoration and crop production.
The MoE then expanded it to 34 more schools with the aim of eventually having CVQ programmes offered in every secondary school across Guyana. This, the release said, will enable each child to exit secondary school with both a CXC certificate and a CVQ certificate.
The Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training has extended its congratulations to the unit for its achievement and pledged to collaborate on the areas to be addressed, the release added.
