THERE were mixed reactions to Wednesday’s announcement by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) that it has put off regional exams by three weeks in consideration of all the issues raised by stakeholders regarding students’ preparation.

The exams will now start on Monday, May 23 and conclude on July 1. Results are projected to be released in late August or early September, a source of apprehension particularly for students hoping to matriculate to overseas tertiary institutions.

Over the months, educators were worried that in the context of all the setbacks in education caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, students would not be ready to sit the exams. Jamaica’s Education Minister Fayval Williams had herself lobbied Caricom for the timeline to be pushed back.

Following the announcement by registrar and CXC CEO Dr Wayne Wesley at a regional press conference, head of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Winston Smith said the union welcomed the postponement.

“Surely, the added time will allow our members the opportunity to further prepare our students to ensure a greater chance of success when they sit the various subjects. The JTA also commends the leadership of the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) for responding to our call to have the matter treated with alacrity. Furthermore, we applaud our colleagues in the other islands who came out in support of this adjustment. The JTA will never sit by and allow any student to be disenfranchised, especially students of low socio-economic situations who are depending on this educational opportunity to advance themselves through quality education,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He said the JTA is confident that tertiary institutions will respond positively to the change as well because more students may receive the required subjects to qualify them for entry into higher education.

But students who are hoping to matriculate to overseas tertiary schools are worried about the down-to-the-wire date for exam results.

President of the National Secondary Students’ Council, Jamaul Hall, said the push-back came as a pleasant surprise to his group, but although the majority of students welcomed the additional time to review, others are worried about the domino effect, given that by the end of August they would need to make a commitment to overseas institutions.

“We welcome the delay, [but] they (students) are concerned as to when the exams will finish in addition to when the grades will be released — because when CXC says they share a bulletin with international colleges, we are wondering how this is beneficial,” Hall told the Observer. “We appreciate all that they have done, but we are now concerned as to where we will be at the end of our exams in waiting for our grades to matriculate.”

The JTA president said the concern isn’t without some merit, but if students fail exams due to insufficient time to prepare then they would not have those opportunities anyway.

“We feel it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he stated.

Further, Dr Wesley acknowledged that the delay would result in some displacement for students who are advancing to tertiary studies, but CXC would endeavour to minimise that problem.

President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS) Linvern Wright says his organisation, too, is happy and relieved that CXC and the education ministry have “done the sensible thing”, in giving students more time to prepare.

“We think that the extension is just, given the challenges we know our students have faced. There is some space now to study with less pressure, cover content and review with less tension and anxiety,” he said.

At the same time, Wright said it is hoped that going forward, decisions such as these “will not be a last ditch effort but one grounded in foresight and solidarity with the difficulties our students face”.

Wright contended that the matter could have been handled better and settled much earlier if the education ministry and CXC were sufficiently mindful of the difficulty facing students who are candidates for the exams, and heeded JAPSS’s call.

Meanwhile, Dr Wesley said CXC is examining a policy to deal with the administration of regional exams in the context of situations such as the setbacks caused by the pandemic. He said this includes a digitalised system across the region, to offer alternate papers and provide comparable exams within a short period.

“The policy is going to look at examination structure, the process used for the delivery of examinations, and how CXC will respond to the varying needs across the region at the same time,” he said.

Students have also been given another two weeks — from June 30 — to submit school-based assessments (SBA) for CSEC and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). They also have the option to recall SBAs already submitted, and modify those papers as long as the final grades have not already been uploaded, Dr Wesley advised.

Adjustments are now being made to the timetable for the exams, and broad topics for paper two will be issued to local ministries of education up to two weeks before the start of exams, CXC said.

Moreover, Dr Wesley stressed that any decision made that impacts the region in general is one that is in the best interest of all stakeholders in the 16 member territories.

“We continue to work with our stakeholders in the best interest of our students across the region. It is always important that our collective will and consensus on matters of regional importance — we have obtained that consensus, and council approved the foregoing decisions,” he said.

There are 105,078 candidate entries for CSEC; 429 for CAPE; and 4,736 for Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence. Students who wish to defer their exams will still be allowed to do so, up to a day before the sitting.

In addition, director of operations at CXC, Dr Nicole Manning, said the examination body is pushing to advance the use of electronic testing modality for the multiple choice paper which, among its advantages, facilitates registration to use this mode as close as possible to exam dates.

She said so far, all the countries have been using electronic testing, which has seen an increase of more than 80 per cent year on year, and it is expected that there will be more requests this year to do the exams electronically.