CXC confident modified exam grades will be fair

Caribbean Examinations Council registrar and CEO Dr Wayne Wesley has assured candidates, parents, guardians, universities and employers that the grades earned by candidates this year will be valid, equivalent, fair and have equal status to the grades awarded in previous years.

In a YouTube video, Wesley explained the methods which would be used to grade the modified examinations which took place during the covid19 pandemic. He said students who were affected by the covid19 pandemic to the extent that they were unable to sit their examinations would be allowed to do their examinations at the next available sitting free of charge.

He said the modified approach included the administration of one common paper, a multiple choice paper or Paper 1, the moderation of all School-Based Assessments (SBAs) and the administration of the alternative to SBA, Paper 3 (2) for private candidates.

“Without Paper 2 being administered, the council had to give more careful attention to equivalence. Equivalence means that from year to year, candidates who earned the same grade demonstrate the same level of performance.”

Wesley said the grading process would be carried out as follows.

“The determination of grades will be modeled to account for the performance according to the candidate’s competence on each profile. There is no adjustment to weighting of papers since the modified approach being used excluded the Paper 2. The trends in teacher predictions over the previous years will be used to determine whether the grade determined is fair to the candidates.”

He said the council is confident that candidates’ performance in 2020 can be compared to past performance trends.

“The basis of this confidence is that a candidate who is awarded a particular grade in 2020 will have similar characteristics and performance on the multiple choice and SBA papers as a candidate who was awarded that grade in previous years. Therefore candidates, parents, guardians, Universities and employers can all be confident that the grades earned this year will be no different from those earned by those candidates who sat the examinations in previous years.”