KINGSTON, Jamaica—Jamaica has registered a total of 1,334 candidates for the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC) which is being piloted in May/June by the regional examination body.

This is from a total of 6,453 candidates who have registered across 13 Member States at 48 examination centres.

This was disclosed at a CXC press conference held last Wednesday in Kingston, Jamaica.

Registrar and Chief Executive Officer at the CXC, Dr Wayne Wesley, said the pilot has been oversubscribed.

“We had planned for the participation of 3,000 learners for the CTEC pilot. Well, the CTEC pilot has been oversubscribed by the participation of over 6,453 candidates …,” Wesley said.

Senior Manager for Examinations Development and Production at CXC, Alton McPherson also spoke at Wednesday’s press conference. He explained that CXC will pilot CSEC mathematics module 1 within the CTEC programme during the regular May/June examinations.

McPherson shared that CXC has already held stakeholder meetings with all territories and will be engaging students in the months leading up to the examination. Such engagements will include orientation, practice tests and getting students familiar with the new registration and examination platforms.

When he first announced CTEC at a press conference last April, Dr Wesley explained that the new qualification would enable students to learn and engage with topics at three different paces and modules. Essentially, it will allow students to learn at their own pace.

Wesley said CTEC entails an advanced, accelerated track with a compressed programme; a typical, general track with a two-year programme; and an individualised, flexible track with an extended programme.

“Within this construct, the learner is at the focus of what we are treating with and, as you can see, we’ll 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,” Wesley said.

He explained further that should students leave the system for any reason, they could re-engage the subject at the next stage. He noted that achieving all the modules would result in the student receiving the relevant certification.

“So you don’t have to start the entire CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) syllabus all over again if you exit with module one. You can re-engage the system at module two or module three and obtain your full certification,” Wesley said.

The CTEC is being administered at the same standard as CSEC and the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examination (CAPE) and will utilise the same syllabus.

-Lynford Simpson