…redesigning structure to reduce dropouts,
enable 21st Century education’
The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is reimagining its qualification structure that governs the Region’s education and qualifications, with talks on the establishment of new certification for technical competency.
CXC CEO, Dr Wayne Wesley
This was revealed by Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Wayne Wesley on Tuesday during the inaugural Ministerial Summit on Educational Assessment. He says this comes as the council seeks to create a modernistic and progressive certification system that will see fewer students dropping out of school without a qualification. The new certification being mulled is designated the Caribbean Technical Education Certificate.
“For us in the Region, it is also necessary and important to include the awareness of regionalism as a study of the history of the Caribbean would reveal that we are one people separated by land and water. To this end, CXC is rethinking our qualification framework to establish a progressive assessment certification system aimed at minimising the number of students leaving the secondary school system without certification,” Dr Wesley said.
“The reimagined structure for the CXC awards will see the development of a new qualification currently being conceptualised as the Caribbean Technical Education Certificate [CTEC]. CTEC will be a broad-based certification geared towards character development, technical and applied competencies for employment, entrepreneurship, and good citizenry.”
Moving forward, the CEO said steps would be taken with the intention of developing the Region’s human capital with a robust and diverse education system.
He outlined, “We’ll take decisive and deliberate actions in inspiring and delivering impactful change. In doing this, CXC is on a mission to develop the human capital of our Caribbean people through partnerships for global competitiveness. Accordingly, at CXC, we provision to become a regional enterprise. A strategic initiative is to lead educational transformation in the Region.”
It is one of the reasons for the summit, which is geared at examining the current educational structure and making positive changes that will trickle down to students.
“The CXC Ministerial Summit is geared towards providing a platform for policymakers, technocrats, institutions, and key stakeholders to deliberate on pertinent issues relevant to the transformation and advancement of the regional education system. CXC is fully cognisant that teaching, learning, and assessment are inextricably linked and represent crucial dimensions of the education system that must be sustainably reconstructed and reimagined with urgency in responding to the emerging demands of the 21st Century economy.”
Just last month, Dr Wesley had posited that the packed content entwined in assessment syllabuses for the CXC should be replaced with an approach that prepared students to adopt competencies to function in society.
He had suggested that a balanced approach be implemented by reimaging and rethinking education assessment – a move that CXC is formulating. This is especially since some of the materials used have little application to the present setting. As such, he said, the CXC must keep abreast with the changes unfolding.
“I don’t know why we can’t have a curriculum that allows students to complete what they need to know in the four years the Ministry of Education would have established for students to learn. We have an attitude now for a lot of extra lessons. We are pressuring the students, giving them an information overload, and when they’re stressed out, we wonder what is happening,” Dr Wesley was quoted as saying.
