Failure to meet SBA deadlines led to “ungraded” CSEC, CAPE result – Manickchand

…says all reviews of grades for Guyana done free of charge

Education Minister Priya Manickchand has related that the failure of some schools to submit the information for School-Based Assessments (SBAs) had resulted in some students receiving “ungraded” at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), this year.
However, she said that mechanisms are now in place for a reoccurrence of such to be prevented.
“Frankly, our schools, our education system made serious mistakes that must not never happen again. Of these 20 schools that had ungraded marks, most of them were because we – our teachers and our Central Ministry – failed in making sure those SBAs reached CXC or reached them correctly. So, it not the students’ fault. It was the way it was delivered and submitted and that will not happen again,” Manickchand told reporters on the sidelines of an event at State House on Tuesday.
Manickchand was providing an update to the local press on the current dissatisfaction with the 2020 CSEC and CAPE results. She met with the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) on Monday.
CXC gives “ungraded” results to students whose information – particularly SBAs – were not submitted. In Guyana, a total of 20 schools in 15 CSEC and CAPE subject areas had received ungraded results and subjects that were affected included: English A, Mathematics, Principles of Business, Office Administration, Human & Social Biology, Theatre Arts, Physical Education & Sports and Economics.
The CAPE subjects that were affected are: Geography Unit 1, Caribbean Studies, Agricultural Science, Environmental Science, Accounting Unit 1 & 2, Law Unit 1 and Pure Mathematics Unit 1 & 2.
These revelations sparked widespread public outrage, with students demanding answers from the examinations body as it relates to the poor grades assigned.
However, following the Ministry’s intervention, 14 schools where students were “ungraded” have since received results with grades. Some of these were Port Kaituma Secondary, Patentia Secondary, Annandale Secondary, New Amsterdam Secondary, Paramakatoi Secondary, Harmony Secondary, Carmel Secondary, Central High School, The Bishops’ High School, Leguan Secondary School and Mahaicony Secondary School.
During a press conference from Barbados on Sunday, CXC said it was working with those schools across the region to rectify the ungraded results and revealed that over 11,000 students were awarded ungraded.
On Tuesday, the Minister told the media that the Government requested that CXC provide in-depth information on what it is looking for when marking the examinations, the weighing of papers for the various subject areas, requirements of teachers when reviewing SBAs, in an effort to ensure that students are correctly guided.

Corrective mechanisms
In respect to the failure of some schools to submit SBA information on time and correctly, the Minister said that mechanisms are now in place to prevent such a reoccurrence and would see teachers being extensively trained. She noted that the Ministry needs the process to be very clear so that both teachers and students understand what is required.
Manickchand related that now that CXC has completed its internal review by the Independent Review Panel – tasked with the review of the modified approach for the administration of the 2020 CAPE and CSEC exams – Guyana’s position remains the same that changes should not have been made in a system that had already been shocked by coronavirus pandemic.
She added that the variance between expected performances at the examination and the results delivered by CXC remains the core of the discussions.
“I think what happened was there was a shock to the system, educationally, across the region, and that was not properly considered in the sitting of the exams,” she posited.
She explained that now Guyana can use CXC’s experience to understand that there should be no remarkable changes for local examinations and assessments without the proper warning and training of all stakeholders in the education system.

Free of charge
For the 2020 examinations, CXC changed its format from Papers 1 and 2 coupled with SBAs owing to the global coronavirus pandemic. This somewhat threw students off balance and it was a move that the local Education Ministry lashed out at following the dissatisfaction with the results. A number of students have applied for reviews of their grades.
On Sunday, CXC Registrar Dr Wayne Wesley in providing comparative figures for the past three years said that the trends for reviews and queries showed that they have been well within the estimated area. He noted for CAPE, 2173 (0.02 per cent) persons sought reviews in 2018, in 2019 that number dropped to 1073 (0.88 per cent), for 2020 it increased to 2353 (1.97 per cent). Meanwhile for queries, in 2018, CXC received 71 (0.001 per cent), in 2019 that number decreased to 36 (0.03) and for this year it rose to 659 representing 0.55 per cent of the total students that sat the exams.
For CSEC, this year the Examinations Council received 2550 (0.46 per cent) requests for reviews and would have received 720 (0.13 per cent) and 813 for 2019 and 2018 respectively. The number of CSEC queries also increased from 705 (0.13 per cent) in 2019 to 1572 (0.28 per cent) in 2020.
Dr Wesley told reporters that at CAPE, some 4961 students received “absent” for 2020, signalling a decrease from 6245 in 2019. Additionally, 2296 students also received ungraded at the 2020 exams. In 2019, that number stood at 757.
What was staggering also was the number – 11,578 – of students who received ungraded at the 2020 CSEC exams as opposed to 8062 in 2019. Also, 30,108 students were recorded as “absent”.
CXC charges US$30 per subject for a review but it has since slashed that in half. However, Manickchand said Guyana has been getting its reviews done for free.
“We have requested schoolwide reviews and reviews by individual students or for individual students once the school indicated to us that they believe that students could have performed differently and those reviews have been done for free. So, if a student, if a school felt a student should have done better and they told us about that then we request that review
“Where entire schools have been ungraded in specific subjects, we requested from the Ministry for those reviews and they were done for free. I saw a call that we should join Barbados to pay for those reviews, we’ve already gotten them done for free once the schools told us. We made contact with all our schools that sat the CXC exams and enquired what we wanted reviewed and we requested that accordingly,” the Minister related. (G2)