CXC: CSEC, CAPE exams will continue as planned

THE Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) announced on Thursday, that Caribbean Secondary Education Council (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) papers will be administered to students as planned, even after exam scripts for nine subjects were stolen from a Jamaica school earlier this week.

On Wednesday, it was reported that a fireproof cabinet containing the papers was taken from St James High School on Tuesday night. The Jamaican ministry of national security and the Jamaican Constabulary Force are investigating.

The breach came less than a month after CXC was forced to scrap the mathematics paper II after it was leaked in Jamaica.

On Thursday, a CXC statement said there was no confirmation the cabinet, even though stolen, had been compromised. As a result, the council decided, after a meeting with regional education ministers, that the exams will be conducted as planned.

CXC added that while police investigations continue in Jamaica, it and regional ministry officials would continue to monitor the security of the exams.

Newsday spoke to two CSEC students on the breaches.

A 16-year-old CSEC student said the academic year had already been stressful and the incident had been “quite a rollercoaster for students.”

He said, “Right after the math II exam, discovering the fact that the paper was leaked prior to the exam left me quite distraught. My colleagues and I worked extremely hard to write our paper and it is appalling that others may have cheated.”

He said he would be completely against having to rewrite any papers.

“I think CXC should just let it be as it is because it is not our fault that these papers were leaked. There’s only a minor amount of students that had the leaked papers, but that should not affect our grades.”

He said his colleagues felt as though they did well in the exams, especially the mathematics II paper, and hoped their grades could still be accounted for.

“But I know for a fact that some students who are aiming to be on the merit list may find it to be a bit unfair. So it’s all about perspective.”

Another student who only wrote the mathematics papers said she had mixed feelings about the news.

The 19-year-old said, “I was a bit happy when they did scrap the paper two, but it was a bit upsetting because we (my family and I) spent the last year focused on the paper two.”

She added that when she saw that there were more breaches, she said it became quite concerning as she was not sure how it would affect the other subjects.

“I understand why people would try to cheat because the education system during the pandemic was horrible and I understand that students and even teachers may feel unprepared, so they resort to last option – cheating. While I understand that, there are students who would have worked hard."