CARIBBEAN Examinations Council (CXC) on Wednesday unveiled a raft of changes which it says “marks the beginning of the end” of the region’s premier assessment and awarding body as we know it” as it “transforms for greater regional impact”.

Registrar and Chief Executive Officer Dr Wayne Wesley, speaking at a virtual press conference on Tuesday — which was the official start of the 2025 examinations with the customary oral examinations in French, Spanish and Portuguese — said “effective January 2026, all examinations administered in the January sessions will be offered electronically, either as e-assessment or hybrid e-assessment”.

He told the briefing that in situations in which candidates are unable to write the examinations electronically they will be accommodated in the May-June sessions, where both paper-based and e-assessment will be administered.

“CXC is repositioning; the strategic repositioning of CXC marks the beginning of our transformation effort. This is the beginning of the end of the Caribbean Examinations Council as we know it, as we transform for greater regional impact,” Wesley said, noting that the body has been engaged, since December 2023, in a comprehensive, strategic repositioning exercise heralding “the beginning of the end of the old CXC”.

Wesley said the comprehensive, strategic repositioning involves a review of CXC’s Article of Agreement to include expanded stakeholder representation, enhanced accountability structures, relevant expertise, prudent oversight, and also the reimagining of assessment and certification.

“First of all, we will be emphasising the acquisition of skills and competencies, social, behavioural, and cultural, as well as using prior learning assessment in recognising the competencies students and candidates have achieved. Secondly, we will be redesigning our qualifications to achieve optimal balance between content coverage and the acquisition of skills through the various approaches, including signalling of current and future employment and skills demands as well as the modularisation of syllabuses,” he told the briefing.

Wesley said consequent on CXC’s shift to become more flexible and responsive to the needs of the region, a new qualification has been developed placing learners at the centre.

“We will be dealing with the learning style of the individual, the learning rate and the learning depth; how students learn, the pace at which they learn, and the amount of content that they can absorb at any one time. In that regard, we have recognised that there are multiple options; you have advanced gifted students who can take the accelerated track and those who can do so through a compressed programme. We also recognise that there are the typical students who will take the general track, completing a programme in a specified period of time as in most of our syllabuses (two years), and then you have the individual who will need a flexible track and extended programme time to treat with and absorb the content,” the CXC head said.

The new qualification, called the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC), Wesley said, will be at the same standard of Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE); will utilise the same syllabus; will be focused on related and relevant learning outcomes; as well as provide for the progressive achievement of competencies and will be non-terminal.

“This CTEC, along with the suite of credentials we offer, will be awarded to students who successfully achieve a module, then this will lead into our intermediate credentials, CSEC and CAPE, which will be awarded to those who achieve a defined set of modules as well as our macro-credentials which are awarded to students who have completed a certain number of CAPE and CSEC subjects,” Wesley explained.

“The approaches to CTEC will be subject-based, where the assessment is based on qualifications embedded in the syllabus or the skills-based assessment, where assessment will be based on competencies achieved through real-life scenarios. So a lot more flexibility will be available to students in achieving and demonstrating the competencies acquired,” he said, adding that this approach has begun with English and mathematics, which will now be treated with on a modular level.

“This will add a greater level of flexibility to the teaching/learning and assessment process, because now a student who, for some reason, has to leave school can re-engage the system, based on what module you have already completed, so you don’t have to start the entire syllabus over. The team will start the pilot of this CTEC certification in September 2025, and the first certificate will actually be awarded in 2026 when the first set of students will be writing that examination,” Wesley said.

In the meantime, CXC said, given the repositioning, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will feature highly. As such, it announced that it will be entering into memorandums of understanding with regional governments to facilitate the adoption of a framework for the use of AI in education.

“We did some data collection in December last year and nearly 70 per cent of our member states don’t have [a] formal AI policy or framework in place. For us to benefit as a region, we need a harmonious development utilising the technologies across the board. It’s not going to help us if one State moves ahead quickly and the others are struggling to follow, because CXC’s exams are not territorial, they are not located in one State; all must benefit from the intervention. The idea behind the framework is not prescriptive in nature, but provides guidance,” CXC’s Director of Technological Innovation Rodney Payne said Tuesday.

CXC, in the meantime, maintained that it was intended that “students will be responsible in their access and use of generative AI while improving their capabilities to use AI”, while emphasising that it would be harsh in dealing with any attempts to cheat.

Director of Operations Dr Nicole Manning said, as it relates to the electronic and hybrid assessments, the use of electronic pre-slips to release results in 2024 was evidence of the move towards digital transformation by the regional body.

She said the hybrid e-assessment is the entity’s response to the heightened concerns over the security of its examinations and calls from the public for it to respond to the breaches seen in 2022 and 2023. She said the hybrid e-assessment presents the opportunity to separate the question paper from the answer booklet. Candidates will access the examination online through entering a key code which will generate a confirmation window and then move on to the examinations. Students will be able to also download the exam paper and work offline in a secured environment.

“CXC is ensuring that there is stability and assurance where the exam is concerned, even if you have Internet disturbance, so whether they view online or otherwise, candidates will be fine in doing their examinations,” she said.

As it relates to the use of AI, Manning emphasised that the standards and guidelines developed by the council are keen on the ethical use of AI and academic integrity as well as data privacy laws and security.

“It’s important that we understand that it will not be business as usual; let’s understand that it is going to require higher order thinking, more performance-based type assessment, and CXC is coming alongside you by providing these guidelines,” she said.

The standards will take effect for the 2026 exams.

WESLEY… we will be emphasising the acquisition of skills and competencies