Answer this one please, CXC

Thursday, August 26, 2010

We've been having such an inspiring time celebrating the achievements of our young students in the recent Caribbean Examination Council's (CXC's) CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) examinations.

That is why we find the view expressed by Mr Richard James, a private tutor with over 20 years of experience teaching Mathematics, so painful.

According to today's edition and that of our sister title, the Observer West, Mr James says that the CXC's CSEC Mathematics examinations have become less and less mentally challenging over the years.

Mr James, who entered several pre-eleventh graders — including three eighth graders — for the May sitting of the Mathematics examination, says that if the papers of yesteryear had been put before the students, they couldn't literally dance through them as they have. He goes further to say that the challenges posed by the CXC cannot facilitate a conclusive assessment of the students' mastery of the discipline.

The thought is frightening. For if what Mr James is saying is true of Mathematics, we are forced to wonder if the same thing could possibly be happening in the other subjects for which the CXC grants certification.

And if it is, we will be forced to ask why.

Could it be — heaven forbid — that like the quality of the values and attitudes which have manifested itself over the years, the quality of the education being provided to our children has also taken a nosedive?

Are we being bamboozled into believing that the improved results being reported by the CXC represent an improvement in the education system, when they really don't?

We hope that the CXC can set us straight on this one.

For the dangers of playing around with the integrity of an exam which has, to its credit, gained recognition in the international community over the years, should be obvious.

We submit that the CXC needs to answer Mr James' concerns post-haste, with a view to removing the question mark from over its head.

The Council needs to tell us whether the eighth graders who are dancing -- as Mr James says -- through exams that are designed for eleventh graders, are able to do so because they are exceptionally brilliant or because the exams have been watered down to facilitate a failing system.

If it is the case that the eighth graders are brilliant, we need as a society to make adequate provision for their educational needs and stop dragging them through years of unnecessary instruction. If it is the case that the eleventh graders are being under-tested, then we need to address that too.

Either way the council, and indeed all of us, have some serious reviews to do.

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Police threat level at extreme

Answer this one please, CXC