The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) have an­nounced a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort to es­tab­lish a Re­gion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (RP­TA), an en­ti­ty de­signed to uni­fy and strength­en par­ent-teacher en­gage­ment across the Caribbean.

The RP­TA will fo­cus on sev­er­al key ob­jec­tives, in­clud­ing pro­mot­ing co­op­er­a­tion among na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (PTAs), fa­cil­i­tat­ing di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties, build­ing strate­gic al­liances with gov­ern­ments on ed­u­ca­tion­al mat­ters, and ad­vo­cat­ing for im­prove­ments in the re­gion­al ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the wel­fare of stu­dents, teach­ers, and par­ents.

Over 30 rep­re­sen­ta­tives of na­tion­al and school-based par­ent-teacher as­so­ci­a­tions (PTAs), and par­ent ad­vo­cate groups across the Caribbean, have unan­i­mous­ly agreed to sup­port the ini­tia­tive.

At a spe­cial stake­hold­er en­gage­ment ses­sion con­vened by CXC ear­li­er this month, the par­ent rep­re­sen­ta­tives wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vance re­la­tion­ship-build­ing with the re­gion­al ex­am­i­na­tion and award­ing body, and to learn more about the gov­ern­ing pro­to­cols and mech­a­nisms to chan­nel their ideas in­to the pol­i­cy­mak­ing lev­els of CXC.

“There are well-es­tab­lished struc­tures for Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTAs) to share their ideas with their re­spec­tive Min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion, which re­late di­rect­ly to the pol­i­cy­mak­ing mech­a­nisms of CXC”, af­firmed Dr Wayne Wes­ley, the Reg­is­trar and CEO of CXC.”

“CXC is high­ly sup­port­ive of the cre­ation of a Re­gion­al PTA to cre­ate an­oth­er av­enue for parental per­spec­tives to be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the re­gion­al de­ci­sion and pol­i­cy­mak­ing process. We hold the view that the voice of the par­ent is crit­i­cal to the ed­u­ca­tion and learn­ing process”, added Wes­ley.