Girls’ High School, St Vincent and the Grenadines

Time really does fly. Thirty years have elapsed and it seems like it was just yesterday that I wrote the first CXC exams under less than ideal conditions. The eruption of the La Soufriere volcano on April 13, 1979 had disrupted the completion of the syllabus. I remember having gone to St. Lucia to stay with relatives for a while and missing classes.

Apart from that, the thought of a new exam by Caribbean educators for Caribbean students was not readily embraced by me. I worried about whether the results would be accredited by Colleges and Universities outside the region. I also was apprehensive about the format – essay and multiple choice questions.

I did not see myself as a pioneer charting the course for future generations. I thought we were guinea pigs for CXC being used for the ‘trial run’. Consequently, many of us wrote the same subjects at CXC and GCE concurrently – just in the event that CXC was not accredited. Back then, a Grade 3 was not recognized as a pass! We had to work hard for Grades 1 and 2 passes.

Thirty years later, CXC is alive and well having metamorphosed into CSEC that my son will write in 2010 but which I do not recognize as the same exams I wrote in 1979.

All my initial fears about CXC were without merit as it is now touted as one of the few successes of Caribbean people working together for the intellectual enrichment of the region.

In 1981 I joined the St Vincent Cooperative Bank as a Saving Clerk and worked there until 1986 when I moved to NBC Radio 705. I spent two years at NBC Radio. In 1988 I returned to the St Vincent Cooperative Bank and moved through the ranks to the post of Manager, the position I currently occupy.