Ministry pledges to work with CXC

The Ministry of Education is ensuring students are given the grades they deserve with the provision of reliable and valid results from the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC). “The Ministry saw it best to invite CXC officials to TT so that we can have a face to face interaction with the council to share with them our concerns and at the same time give them the opportunity to explain to us what transpired,” said Minister Anthony Garcia at his office, in Port of Spain.

Present at the meeting were Ministry of Education officials; Minister of State in the Ministry of Education Lovell Francis, Chief Education Officer (CEO) Harrilal Seecharan, Acting Permanent Secretary Lenor Baptiste-Simmons and CXC officials- Glenroy Cumberbatch- CXC’s Registrar and CEO, Director of Operations- Stephen Savoury and Executive Administrative Assistant Amril Gittens.

Some of the issues addressed were the late release of results, online registration, review of the exam process, grade changes, e-testing and queries pertaining to the two major examinations; Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).

“CXC’s examination body is a regional body and as we go further in Caribbean integration everything must be done to secure the integrity of the council and every effort must be made so that the general public would have confidence in CXC, as all concerns will be dealt with expeditiously,” said Garcia.

Cumberbatch said that CXC is very concerned about providing reliable test scores and ensuring that their systems, committees and other elements are set up to guarantee that students get valid and reliable results.“We (CXC) are making sure that the processes we use can stand up to scrutiny, CXC qualifications are accepted any part of the world and every effort we make is to ensure that candidates get the scores they earned and deserve as all our systems are set up in a way to produce that,” said Cumberbatch.

“Based on discussions we have had in areas of challenges, systems are already being put in place to deal with them,” said Seecharan.

“As it pertains to the late release of results, CXC has advised that the problem resulted from challenges with the service provider. As such they (CXC) have changes their service provider to help mitigate the issue,” he continued. The issue of on-line registration was also addressed.