Dear Editor,
This state of affairs re the 2022 CXC Exams, and CARICOM/ COHSOD/CXC’s insistence on a ‘business as usual’ approach to the 2022 exams, in the 3rd academic year within the pandemic, is deeply embarrassing and damaging to our regional brand, and says much about our societies’ compassion towards our region’s children. The callousness exhibited is deeply disturbing. This approach demonstrates a tragic lack of care for our children, and detachment from the high degree of further stress these exams are inflicting on our region’s children and their teachers.
CXC’s recent response re calls for delay to the 2022 Exams was a specious one, but understandable as CARICOM’s COHSOD has once again provided cover to CXC. It seems that our children’s and teachers’ mental and emotional well-being are acceptable collateral damage. The philosophical goal that CXC has provided, as justification for their intransigence and inflexibility, of ‘regional consensus’ appears more important to CXC than exhibiting care and concern for our flesh and blood children. Our CARICOM project has once again failed our children, perhaps because the change of CARICOM’s governance structure re CXC – to include external independent regulation – remains absent. In sharp contrast, UK’s Cambridge was directed by UK’s Government (and as monitored by their independent external regulator OFQUAL) to ensure that their 2022 assessments were modified to address the pandemic challenges to education. Thus, while the UK’s standard 2022 exam dates were kept, broad topics were provided to students and teachers months prior and an undertaking to mark more generously was provided. The UK has demonstrated reasonable and compassionate care and concern for their students. What has CARICOM demonstrated?
(Also the UK schools had the additional advantage of starting their 2021/2022 academic year on time and were face to face long before most CARICOM schools.) Again very little in practical terms has been provided by CXC to aid students and teachers in 2022 Exams and to address the challenges of 3 academic years within a pandemic. CXC is noticeably and tellingly silent on those points. Their comments on needing to ensure students obtain results in time for university deadlines, on further investigation, do not hold water, as the bulk of students taking exams (5th and Lower 6 Forms) do not need results for university entrance. Ill prepared, stressed Upper 6 students are also unlikely to optimise their results and therefore university entrance, as well. Maybe CXC (and COHSOD) will now finally pay attention to the concerns publicly expressed by parent’s teachers and students since early 2021 re 2022 Exams, now that Jamaica has come out so forcefully, in a rather unprecedented manner, advocating for a delay to the 2022 CXC Exams. (After all, we know what led to the WI Federation’ demise: ‘ 1 from 10 leaves 0’…).
There are growing calls to seek alternatives for CXC as the CARICOM’s public exam body. Certainly greater numbers of parents are pursuing private options, nationally and regionally, as confidence in CARICOM public secondary school education has been significantly damaged, if not destroyed, based on the treatment of our children since 22 Sept 2020 (the release of CXC’s exam results). Historians will marvel re the callous apathy exhibited by our society in our treatment of our children during these 3 academic years within the pandemic. Why is CXC being allowed, by our regional CARICOM governments, to perpetrate such callous cruelty on our children? Why are we as parents and the general public accepting this as normal? Do we not see how other countries have fundamentally adjusted their external exit exams/assessments to help their students? While this year CARICOM’s CXC exams are business as usual (and in some cases starting earlier than usual)? Aren’t we embarrassed by the contrast? Are concerns for fairness and justice only relevant re slavery?
Sincerely,
Ms. Paula-Anne Moore
Parent Advocate Spokesperson/Coordinator
The Group of Concerned Parents, Barbados
The Caribbean Coalition for Exam Redress
