MINISTER of Education, Youth and Education Senator Ruel Reid has reiterated that in about five years students sitting Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) subjects will do some aspects of their examinations online.

“They’re already doing marking online, and all CXC exams are likely, within the next five years, to be online,” Senator Reid said as he addressed a Teacher Sensitisation and Consultation Session for the Primary Exit Profile (PEP) held at the Old Harbour New Testament Church in St Catherine on Tuesday.

He said the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information is positioning itself to support this new approach through the National Standards Curriculum.

“A lot of the things that we are doing, even the National Standards Curriculum, will have to incorporate online teaching and learning, so all of us have to now get with the technology and prepare ourselves to navigate in this 21st century and beyond,” Minister Reid said.

He added that like CXC with new technology, the ministry makes adjustments to its curriculum to meet the new standards set regarding subjects, papers, syllabuses, and sample items.

At a press conference to launch the CXC Learning Hub, at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on May 10, the minister said that students would soon be required to take some aspects of their examinations online, as part of the Hub.

Through the Hub, students now have increased access to CXC material as well as resources produced by the examination body’s external partners.

In welcoming the move by CXC at that event, he said with the advancement of technology, it is only fitting for Jamaica’s education system to start testing the use of online examinations for students exiting the secondary level.

The minister said online testing for CXC will now include audiovisuals, videos and animations in multiple-choice tests, which provide a particularly attractive option and will help students to perform better in external examinations.