The Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) says it is repo­si­tion­ing it­self to be­come more re­spon­sive to the needs of the re­gion as thou­sands of stu­dents be­gin writ­ing ex­am­i­na­tions on Tues­day.

“This repo­si­tion­ing strat­e­gy aimed to en­hance our re­gion­al im­pact and glob­al in­flu­ence, en­sur­ing the pro­vi­sion of rel­e­vant and high-qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion­al ser­vices.

“Ladies and gen­tle­men, much is ex­pect­ed of CXC and we will not shrink back in­to what we have to do, but in­stead we will move coura­geous­ly and bold­ly in shap­ing and trans­form­ing ed­u­ca­tion with­in the re­gion,”  said the CXC’s Reg­is­trar and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Dr Wayne Wes­ley.

He told a news con­fer­ence that in or­der to be suc­cess­ful “ we know we will have to lis­ten more to our stake­hold­ers.

“This is a defin­ing pos­ture of the new CXC. We will lis­ten, we will en­gage and work with all our stake­hold­ers, our par­ents, our stu­dents, our gov­ern­ments, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, teach­ers, ed­u­ca­tors and all our re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners for greater re­gion­al im­pact”.

The an­nounce­ment of the new ini­tia­tive co­in­cides with the of­fi­cial start of the tra­di­tion­al May-June ex­am­i­na­tions, set up by CXC, which was es­tab­lished in 1972 un­der agree­ment by the par­tic­i­pat­ing gov­ern­ments in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM).

It pro­vides re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised sec­ondary school leav­ing ex­am­i­na­tions rel­e­vant to the needs of the re­gion; and as­sists in Com­mon En­trance and oth­er types of ex­am­i­na­tions. The CXC has a com­pre­hen­sive suite of qual­i­fi­ca­tions name­ly CSEC, Caribbean Cer­tifi­cate of Sec­ondary Lev­el Com­pe­tence (CC­SLC), Caribbean Vo­ca­tion­al Qual­i­fi­ca­tion (CVQ), Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) and the CXC As­so­ciate De­gree (CXC-AD).

“We are pleased to an­nounce that for this  2025 ex­am­i­na­tion pe­ri­od 100, 000 can­di­dates from across the re­gion have been reg­is­tered to sit more than 600,000 sub­ject en­tries. This will be an­oth­er mam­moth un­der­tak­ing by  CXC, but we are equal to the task, the team has worked hard to en­sure every­thing is in place for the suc­cess­ful ad­min­is­tra­tion of the ex­am­i­na­tions,” Wes­ley told re­porters.

He said CXC is repo­si­tion­ing and it marks “the be­gin­ning of our trans­for­ma­tion ef­fort…and this is the be­gin­ning of the end of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil as you know it as we trans­form for greater re­gion­al im­pact”.

He said that as the unique cer­ti­fy­ing body for sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion with­in CARI­COM, CXC is seized with the im­per­a­tive to en­gage its own or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­new­al to pro­vide the re­quired lead­er­ship and sup­port for ed­u­ca­tion trans­for­ma­tion in the re­gion.

He said since De­cem­ber 2023,  CXC has been en­gaged in a com­pre­hen­sive strate­gic repo­si­tion­ing ex­er­cise in “what is the be­gin­ning of the end of the old  CXC.

“This com­pre­hen­sive strate­gic repo­si­tion­ing is about trans­form­ing for greater rel­e­vance and sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he said,  adding that it en­com­pass­es three main el­e­ments, in­clud­ing the mod­erni­sa­tion of the gov­er­nance sys­tem in­volv­ing a re­view of  CXC’s ar­ti­cles of agree­ment to in­clude ex­pand­ed stake­hold­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion,  en­hanc­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, rel­e­vant ex­per­tise and pru­dent over­sight to en­sure ad­her­ence to pol­i­cy man­date.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­design of the CXC is in­tend­ed to make the ex­am­i­na­tion body “fit for pur­pose” and “what this means is CXC trans­form­ing for greater rel­e­vance sus­tain­abil­i­ty to achieve or­gan­i­sa­tion­al agili­ty‘…re­spond­ing quick­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly to un­pre­dictable events”.

He said the third el­e­ment of repo­si­tion­ing is reimag­in­ing as­sess­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“This calls for the re­cal­i­bra­tion and re­fo­cus of the Coun­cil’s sys­tem of  as­sess­ment  and  cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, em­brac­ing flex­i­ble and pro­gres­sive learn­ing and com­pe­ten­cy base e3duca­tion in align­ment with eco­nom­ic and so­cial trans­for­ma­tion.”

He said there will al­so be a re­design­ing of the CXC qual­i­fi­ca­tions to achieve an op­ti­mal bal­ance be­tween con­tent cov­er­age and the ac­qui­si­tion of skills to the var­i­ous ap­proach­es of cur­rent and fu­ture em­ploy­ment skills de­mands as well as the mod­erni­sa­tion of syl­labus­es.

“This is a new de­vel­op­ment in CXC as we seek to be­come more flex­i­ble and re­spon­sive to the needs of the re­gion and so a new qual­i­fi­ca­tion has been de­vel­oped…and with­in this con­struct the learn­er is at the fo­cus of what we are treat­ing with.

“In that re­gard, we have recog­nised that there are mul­ti­ple op­tions.  You have ad­vanced gift­ed stu­dents, who can take the ac­cel­er­at­ed track and those who can do so through a com­pressed pro­gramme.

“We al­so recog­nise there are the typ­i­cal stu­dents who will take the gen­er­al track, com­plet­ing the pro­gramme in a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od of time as in most of our syl­labus­es, two years, and then you will have the in­di­vid­u­alised in­di­vid­ual who will need a flex­i­ble track and ex­tend­ed pro­gramme time  to treat with and ab­sorb the con­tent”

He said that recog­nis­ing the three com­pe­ten­cies of the learn­er will lead to a new qual­i­fi­ca­tion by CXC  that will be at the same stan­dard as CSEC and CAPE, util­is­ing the same syl­labus, fo­cus­ing on re­lat­ed and rel­e­vant learn­ing out­comes and pro­vid­ing for pro­gres­sive achieve­ments of com­pe­ten­cies.

He said the Caribbean Tar­get­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CTEC), which will be non-ter­mi­nal will be “our mi­cro cre­den­tial and will be award­ed to stu­dents who suc­cess­ful­ly achieve a mod­ule.

“Then this will lead in­to our in­ter­me­di­ate cre­den­tials which will be award­ed to those who achieve a de­fined mod­ule sub­jects…” with the macro-cre­den­tials be­ing giv­en to those stu­dents suc­cess­ful­ly achiev­ing a pre­scribed set of sub­jects and or mod­ules.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Apr 15, CMC

CMC/ph/ir/2025