The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) will be fully managing Guyana’s entire National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) from beginning to end, the Ministry of Education has announced.
In a press release issued yesterday, the ministry stated that having CXC fully conduct the examinations, including its marking, will allow for a fair and transparent assessment backed by the renowned integrity of CXC. The Council has been in charge of setting the exam since 2016, however, during this year’s administration of the exam, the examination body commenced and completed a process of verification to ensure that the scores that were earned by the candidates are recorded and reflected accurately and fairly in the candidates’ placement.
Following this process, the Ministry and the Council have agreed to have CXC manage the exam in the same way from now onward.
The ministry stated that the Chief Examiners and Assistant Chief Examiners employed by CXC have checked an appropriate sample of the NGSA examination scripts. It said that these scripts were housed in containers specially sealed by CXC in a manner that would expose any tampering. The scripts were opened in the presence of the CXC Supervisor and the officials conducted checks to ensure that all questions on the scripts were marked and that the scores recorded inside matched with what was recorded on the outside of the booklet. Checks were also made to ensure that the tallying of the scores was correct.
Further, the standardised scores were also quality checked by CXC to ensure that they matched what has been submitted by the Council to the National Data Management Authority (NDMA). Further checks were made to ensure that the consequential standardised scores reflected the way the candidates worked. It was noted that some of this quality control was previously done by the Testing Unit of the National Centre for Education Resource Development (NCERD). This was without the involvement of CXC, but for the first time in the history of the examination, it was conducted by CXC, the examining body which will now manage the examination inclusive of preparing the examination questions, supervising the examination and marking the scripts.
As a result, the release noted that for the first time since it started setting the exam, the Council will also manage the entire review process. The review process begins immediately upon publication of the results. The ministry said that it aims to conduct level appropriate exams which bear the CXC mark of integrity for which the examining body is renowned across the world.
