KINGSTON, Jamaica—The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has developed new numeracy and literacy standards as part of its efforts to improve the outcomes in the core subjects of English language and mathematics throughout the region.

Registrar and Chief Executive Officer at CXC, Dr Wayne Wesley spoke to the issue at a CXC press conference in Kingston on January 7.

“I have in hand two key CXC resources for the regional education system, which have been approved by Council. This document encapsulates approved literacy and numeracy standards to guide the instruction and learning process in our secondary schools across the region, targeting the first three years of school,” Wesley told journalists.

The other document addresses learning and instruction at the primary level of the regional education system. According to Wesley, “It is aimed at achieving greater learning outcomes through the CXC Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment and contains new targets, standards and performance criteria benchmarked against regional and international curricula requirements,” said Wesley.

For her part, senior manager of the Qualifications Management Department at CXC, Norlette Leslie Yearde, emphasised that the standards are designed for the first three years of a student’s secondary education. She said CXC, having looked at the performance of candidates in CSEC English and mathematics, has acknowledged that the achievement gaps in those subject areas is of “great concern”.
As part of solving the problem, Leslie Yearde said CXC developed the standards to be admnistered at the lower secondary school level.

“That’s deliberate because as students exit primary (school) we tend to have a very good image of the profile of these candidates at the end of primary. But, as they enter primary there’s a gap between those first three years and the final two years when they interface with the CXC products,” she said.

Leslie Yearde noted that these products typically represent the first set of standardise assessment that students would experience over a five-year period. She said CXC decided that the new standards pitched at the lower secondary level will provide ministries of education, teachers and students themnselves with the tools to help students gauge their progress in the subject areas. They will also support the design and development of interventions that are tailored to meet the specific gaps that exist in students.

The senior CXC manager said the standards may be used to support the design of diagnostic assessments which may be used to develop the baseline for students’ literacy and numeracy. The baseline will then be used to craft the specific interventions that are deemed necessary. The standards will be made available online.

-Lynford Simpson