Cognizant of the events which affected the candidates who wrote examinations at centres in West Kingston for the May/June sitting of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), the Council assured the Ministry of Education-Jamaica, that the Council has well-established assessment procedures for dealing with candidates whose performance in its examinations were very likely to have been adversely affected by such events such as natural disasters or social disturbances; or who have individually by any circumstances before or during the examinations which might have adversely affected that person’s performance.

These procedures include statistical validation which allows CXC to undertake a comparative analysis of a candidate’s performance using several pieces of data such as a review of the candidate’s performance on all components of the examination already completed, the teacher’s expected grade of the candidate and the School Based Assessment or Internal Assessment.

These procedures were applied to the cases of the relevant candidates and their results were presented to the Ministry of Education, Overseas Examinations Commission and principals on Monday 16 August at a special meeting.

During the period 24 to 28 May, when a State of Emergency was declared in Kingston and Andrew, six subjects for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination were administered and 12 subjects for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE). The CSEC subjects were Biology, Geography, Office Administration, Principles of Business, Religious Education and Social Studies; the CAPE subjects affected were Applied Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Electrical and Electronic Technology, Environmental Science, Law, Literatures in English, Management of Business, Physics, Pure Mathematics and Spanish.

Three hundred and fifty-one CAPE candidates of the 12, 315 or 2.8 percent were affected. For CSEC, 1, 877 candidates of 77, 924 or 2.4 per cent were affected.

The Overseas Examinations Commission, through the CXC Local Registrar in consultation with CXC, made arrangements for candidates in the affected areas to write their examinations at other centres.

Subsequent to the administration of the examinations, the Local Registrar submitted a report to CXC indicating that candidates from 13 centres were severely affected by the circumstances and requested that the Council take this into account in grading them. The Council also took into account other candidates whose performance might have been affected adversely by any circumstance.

The procedures employed in arriving at candidates grades included drilling down to the individual candidate’s script and comparing the centre’s performance in the particular subject with those of previous years.

The Council re-assures the Ministry of Education, parents, schools, candidates and the Jamaican public that each candidate who wrote its examinations during the events in West Kingston was awarded a grade by the procedures of special assessment which took account of that candidate’s circumstances.  

The Council takes this opportunity to reassure candidates, their parents, and their schools in Jamaica and in the region that it uses procedures which takes into account both the interests of individual candidates to receive a grade accurately reflecting their performance, as well as the interest of the region in preserving the integrity of CXC’s examination results.  

For further information, please contact Cleveland Sam, Assistant Registrar-Public Information at telephone number (246) 227 1892 or via e-mail at CSam@cxc.org.