by Kevon Browne
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Reacting to the mounting pressure from regional Ministries of Education, parents and stakeholders, the Caribbean Examination Council has decided to postpone this year’s exams by three weeks.
The ongoing and prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the regional educational body into the decision, which was reached after a meeting held earlier today (April 27).
CXC Registrar, Dr. Wayne Wesley, announced the change in the 2022 schedule following a meeting earlier today.
“After careful deliberation and consideration of all the pertinent issues, Council agrees that the revised strategy for the 2022 regional examinations shall be as follows; A delay in the sitting of the regional examinations by three weeks, this will provide candidates with additional time to prepare for the examinations. Therefore, examinations will commence on Monday, May 23, 2022, and the results [are] projected to be released in late August or early September. The details will be determined and communicated accordingly.”
The submission of School-Based Assessments (SBA) was also rescheduled, with the broad topics for the SBA’s will be released in the next two weeks.
“Secondly, [an] extension of the submission of School-Based Assessment from June 30, 2022, by a further two weeks for the submission of both CAPE and CSEC SBAs. Thirdly, [the] release of broad topics be communicated to the candidates. CXC will share with the Ministries of Education, for communication with candidates, the broad topics to be assessed on Paper Two.”
CXC is still working on the details of when the results will be released after the 2022 exams, understanding that the schedule change may affect the registration of students moving to tertiary institutions.
“Whatever decision we arrive at, there will always be some amount of displacement. We work assiduously to minimise that as much as possible … with a delay means that there is some adjustment with receiving the papers, even for grading. We understand the concerns of [our] students wanting these to be available as early as possible, and we will seek to do what is necessary at this time to facilitate having them meeting their matriculation requirement at the earliest possible time.”
The Registrar said the Council would try to release the result as close to the original schedule as possible.
“Late August, early September, we are still working through those details. As you know, the decision was made this morning, so we’re working through those details to make sure we are better able to communicate specifically when those results will be available. But that’s the aim, to keep it as close as possible to what the original date is, but one would appreciate that if there’s a delay, there is likely to be a delay in when the results are ready.”
There are 135,000 students registered for the 2022 exams; 105,078 for CSEC, 25,429 for CAPE and 4,736 for CCSLC.
The local registrar will communicate more information on the specific dates for exams in each territory.
