The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) is mov­ing to­wards full on­line test­ing, ac­cord­ing to Reg­is­trar and Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Dr Wayne Wes­ley.

He re­port­ed that work was still be­ing done to get mem­ber states ready for the full digi­ti­sa­tion of all ex­am­i­na­tions.

In April 2016, CXC pi­lot­ed its elec­tron­ic test­ing plat­form which was fol­lowed by the launch of the Jan­u­ary 2017 Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) mul­ti­ple choice ex­ams.

“This year, we are now ca­pa­ble of do­ing all our mul­ti­ple choice ex­am­i­na­tions elec­tron­i­cal­ly and we are mov­ing soon to have sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions for Pa­per 2,” the CXC CEO said.

“How­ev­er, giv­en the vast dif­fer­ence across the re­gion with re­spect to the IT in­fra­struc­ture that is re­quired for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of elec­tron­ic test­ing, we have to be work­ing cur­rent­ly with the min­istries on a par­tic­u­lar sched­ule that will see us over a pe­ri­od of time im­ple­ment­ing elec­tron­ic test­ing. But we have start­ed that process and we are hop­ing that it will move quick­ly in the right di­rec­tion.”

Wes­ley, who al­so gave an up­date on the out­come of CXC’s in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the leak of the CSEC Math­e­mat­ics Pa­per 2 last Wednes­day, hours be­fore the ex­am, con­ced­ed that hav­ing ex­ams ful­ly on­line would not elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of leaks or cheat­ing.

“While we don’t see it as the panacea, it will cer­tain­ly help in ad­vanc­ing and in­creas­ing the lev­el of se­cu­ri­ty sur­round­ing our ex­am­i­na­tions. Of course, then you will have cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty to deal with, but it will give us greater con­trol as to when ex­ams are dis­patched and ready be­cause it is on the morn­ing that we would re­lease the ex­am and not nec­es­sar­i­ly a cou­ple days be­fore, giv­en the ter­rain and the ge­o­graph­i­cal ar­eas that we would have to cov­er for the ex­e­cu­tion of the ex­am in any one coun­try,” he ex­plained.

CXC launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion fol­low­ing re­ports the Math­e­mat­ics Pa­per 2 was leaked be­fore the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the ex­am­i­na­tion on Wednes­day. Wes­ley said CXC’s se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures helped pin­point the ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tre in Ja­maica where the leak orig­i­nat­ed.

“As a re­sult of the breach and the com­pro­mise of the ex­am­i­na­tion, as well as con­sid­er­a­tion for the men­tal health and well­be­ing of our can­di­dates, time­ly re­lease of re­sults, and ma­tric­u­la­tion re­quire­ments, CXC has de­ter­mined that for this ex­am­i­na­tion the mod­i­fied ap­proach will be used to award fair and valid grades,” CXC said.

Copies of the ex­am pa­per be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia the night be­fore the ex­am, prompt­ing an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Not­ing the anx­i­ety the in­ci­dent had caused among stu­dents who had spent months prepar­ing for the ex­am, Wes­ley said the cri­te­ria for as­sess­ing the ex­am will be mod­i­fied.