Students have until May 1 to defer sitting 2021 CXC exams
KINGSTON, Jamaica— Students who are contemplating whether to defer sitting the 2021 Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) examinations have until May 1, 2021 to decide.
Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Fayval Williams, made the announcement while informing that the Ministry has prepared guidelines for those students who would like to defer the 2021 sitting of the CXC exams.
“These guidelines are to ensure that we manage the process efficiently, effectively and judiciously,” she said, while addressing a virtual post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday.
She said that in addition to the ministry bulletins that will be sent to principals, a virtual meeting will be arranged with principals “to detail the process for application for deferral, the considerations or criteria for approval to defer, and we will also detail for our schools how we treat with the retained or deferred students”.
In the meantime, the minister announced that examinations will be scheduled during the June to July 2021 period, following approval from Caricom’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), which comprises all the Ministers of Education across the Caribbean region.
“CXC will administer the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) exams… in their original format. That is, for CAPE and CSEC Papers 1, 2 and 031, which is the School-Based Assessment (SBA) or Paper 032 for private candidates, and for CCSLC, Papers 1 and 2,” she said.
Additionally, the minister said that CSEC and CAPE written exams will commence on June 14 and end on July 16, 2021. Results will be made available to the Ministries of Education in the last week of September 2021.
“[Further], taking into consideration the loss of learning many students would have experienced, CXC will share with the Ministries of Education, for communication to candidates, the broad topics to be assessed on Paper 2. This will be done five weeks in advance of the start of the exam,” she said.
