CAPE student tells CXC: Don’t blame teachers

CARIBBEAN Advanced Proficiency Exam (CAPE) students say they do not accept an independent review team’s claim that teachers may have misled students with unrealistic predicted grades.

An independent review team convened by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) released a report last week even as CAPE and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exam students and their parents protested outside the Red House against CXC and the grades they (the students) received.

The committee’s 46-page document detailed events leading up to the final decision to modify the CAPE and CSEC exams. One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said she refuses to believe the report’s accusation against teachers. She said her Information Technology teacher has an “excellent record of producing top-performing students with high-standard School Based Assessments (SBA)...We had tremendous faith and belief in our teacher.”

The report noted “discrepancies” between teachers’ and moderators’ scores. In some instances, grades were “inflated” in teachers’ scores. “Full marks given in some cases; a score given in some cases for non-existent responses.”

The report also said the moderation of paper 3 (SBA) “served to increase the thoroughness and improve the reliability of the process in 2020 compared to previous years.” Parents and students contacted Newsday to say this is a misrepresentation of the input of teachers.

A CAPE student said, “CXC accused teachers of grade inflation, explaining that students were given full marks in instances where they did not deserve it. They explained that it was a possible reason for the downgrading of our SBAs.

“I wrote CAPE Unit two this year and was given full marks in my SBA by my teacher. However, I received a grade two. Given my performance in Unit 1 for this subject (IT), where I placed in the top 20 in TT. CXC’s explanations about my grade this year is unfathomable.

“There was a high disparity in the grades received by my classmates. Only two out of 26 students received grade ones in Unit two this year.” She said CXC has created a high level of distrust in its stakeholders and the report only served to make it worse.