THE Caribbean Examinations Council has raised concerns about the number of candidates who were absent for the January sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

“It is cause for concern that taxpayers’ money is being used to pay [for examinations fees] and candidates are not showing up to write the examinations,” deputy chair of CXC Dr Marcia Potter is quoted as saying in a release from the council Tuesday.

Potter, who is also the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture in the British Virgin Islands, was speaking at the 70th Meeting of the Final Awards Committee (FAC) of CXC last week Friday at the CXC Headquarters in Barbados.

During the meeting, the release said it was revealed that in a number of subjects many candidates did not show up for their examinations, which were paid for by either the candidates or their governments.

CXC said absenteeism has always been an issue in the January sitting; however, it highlighted that the numbers were office administration (41 per cent); English B (37 per cent); principles of accounts (31 per cent); information technology (30 per cent); and social studies (28 per cent). On Tuesday, CXC Registrar Glenroy Cumberbatch told the Jamaica Observer that there could be a number of issues that contribute to candidates missing examinations.

“We do not have any hard data to say why persons may have missed the examinations. However, sometimes when students get back their (May/June) examination results in August and they recognise that they have not done so well, they may be inclined to re-register to sit those exams in January,” he said.

Cumberbatch added that over time, students do not prepare properly to resit the examinations and “may not want to go again and take an exam that they are not prepared for”.

“Sometimes they go to the examination and don’t write anything on the paper or they just rewrite the questions,” he explained.

In response to the high absenteeism rates for some subjects, the registrar said CXC plans to provide a more detailed feedback to candidates on their performance so that they know their areas of strengths and weaknesses. He said, too, that the CXC Learning Hub would provide additional resources to candidates to aid their exam preparation.

The Learning Hub is expected to be ready by the end of September 2018.

In the meantime, CXC outlined that performances in key subjects, such as English A, remained the same as in 2017, with 56 per cent of entries achieving the acceptable grades, while for English B, 27 per cent of entries achieved acceptable grades this year.

“The Subject Awards Committee reported that in several cases, candidates scored zero on a number of questions on paper two. Some candidates wrote no answers and others simply wrote back the question,” said the council.

CXC said mathematics continued its downward trend that started three years ago, with 30 per cent of candidates achieving acceptable grades.

However, it reported that performance in biology saw the most significant improvement, with 71 per cent of entries achieving acceptable grades: Grades I-III.

“This improvement was as a result of better performance on all three profiles: Knowledge and comprehension, use of knowledge and experimental skills,” the release said.

— Deandra Morrison