Candidates preparing to sit this year’s CXC exams and the NGSA are still awaiting word from the Ministry of Education about when the exams will be written and what changes to expect.
On Friday May 8, 2020, CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) – Education granted approval for the administration of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) assessments.
The Ministry of Education in Guyana is yet to inform teachers, candidates and their parents about its decision for the examination process, which has been modified and involves the administration of Paper 1 (Multiple Choice Assessment), School Based Assessments, and, where applicable, additional assessment components along with appropriate modelling accounting for historical data and teacher-predicted information.
When Stabroek News made several attempts to query how the Ministry plans to move forward, the Chief Education Officer, Ingrid Trotman, the Ministry’s Senior Public Relations Officer, Brushell Blackman, as well as Public Relations Officer Murtland Haley, all said a decision would be announced soon. However, when Stabroek News reached out again yesterday, Haley said that he had not been informed of any decisions for any of the exams.
Currently there is much uncertainty regarding the exams, given that the CSEC and CAPE examinations are to be administered via an electronic-testing modality in countries that are equipped with the requisite infrastructure and where there are infrastructure challenges, candidates would be allowed to sit paper-based examinations. Questions about how safe it will be for candidates to sit the exams are also being asked, given the impact of COVID-19 and national protocols.
In April, the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union, Coretta McDonald, told Stabroek News that the Union does not agree with the exam strategy that the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) was proposing.
Saying the alternative proposed would not be credible, McDonald suggested that the exams be postponed, stating that “The rescheduling of the exam should not affect the preparedness of the students given that the syllabus would have already started before the COVID-19 outbreak. But that would give them more time to prepare, for those who feel as though they are not quite ready.” Former Education Minister under the PPP/C administration Priya Manickchand also agreed that the exams should be postponed. Many students and teachers also agreed that in order for candidates to fully prepare for the exam and not risk contracting the novel coronavirus disease, the sittings for the exams should be delayed.
NGSA
Decisions on the National Grade Six Assessment are also to be released to the public. In March, the Ministry of Education released a statement informing parents, teachers and students of the exam’s postponement. “The Ministry of Education wishes to notify the general public that due to the current situation, careful thought has been given to the scheduled dates for the administration of the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) 2020. As such, please be advised that the previously announced dates (April 8 and 9, 2020) are no longer valid. Adequate notice will be given with regard to the new dates,” the release said.
The Ministry has since tried to take advantage of online schooling by contacting parents and using social media apps to send school work for students who are at home. Programmes for classes from grades 1 to 6 are also being broadcast on the Guyana Learning Channel and NCN Radio for students who might not have immediate access to the internet, if any at all. Workbooks are also supposed to be distributed to students in rural areas and copies of past papers are being published in newspapers but the public still awaits word about what is to be expected for students and when they will be sitting their exams.
In a letter titled “Children not ready for Grade Six Assessment,” published in the May 17, 2020, edition of Sunday Stabroek, a parent expressed concern about what decisions will be made for students who will have to sit the exams. The parent started off by addressing the much opposed CXC decision and voiced their hope the Ministry will not follow in the CXC’s footsteps. The parent advocated that the ministry “act on the advice of the National COVID-19 Task Force,” given the implications that “premature reopening of schools and more so administration of the NGSA may have”.
The parent then noted that while some persons believe that students completed the curriculum before the schools were closed over two months ago, “as a parent of a grade six child, I can tell the policymakers that the children are not ready for the examinations. In my opinion, they must go through at least a month of pupil-teacher contact or re-acclimatization before they are back in examination mode. The longer school stays closed, the farther these 10 and 11 year olds are away from examination readiness. Remember, as much as they would have been ‘home schooled’, three months or more of home schooling cannot get them ready to sit this very important examination”.
