The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) will host a two-member team from the Saba Comprehensive

School for a three-day visit from 10-13 March.

The members of the team are Ms Constance Patricia Clement, Deputy Principal and Department Head of

the Academic Stream, and Ms Jill Yearwood, Career Guidance Counselor at the school.

While in Barbados, the team will hold discussions with officials of CXC on various issues including

examinations administration, school based assessment, curriculum development, teacher training and

professional development, and CXC’s examinations system.

The team will also visit two secondary schools in Barbados, Harrison College and St Leonard’s Boys

School. At Harrison College team members would observe the administration of the Caribbean

Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), while at St Leonard’s they would observe both the Caribbean

Vocational Qualification (CVQ) and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC),

and interact with teachers who deliver these programmes.

“The purpose for this visit is to gain more in-depth information on several CXC-related issues which

could benefit education on Saba,” Mr. Hemmie van Xanten, Director of the Saba Comprehensive School

stated.

Saba current offers the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), and Mr van Xanten said the

Dutch territory is exploring how it can make appropriate use of the other examinations offered by CXC,

such as the CCSLC, CAPE and CVQ.

According to Mr van Xanten, Saba is the only school within the Netherlands which has been granted

permission to teach in English and the CSEC syllabus is used as the content.

“The visit of the team from Saba is an opportunity for CXC to deepen its existing relationship with the

islands of the Dutch-speaking Caribbean territories,” explained Dr Didacus Jules, Registrar of the

Caribbean Examinations Council. “Schools in St Maarten and two private institutions in Suriname already

offer CXC examinations and CXC has plans to embrace countries of the Spanish- and French-speaking

Caribbean which may have an interest in CXC offerings.”

For further information, please contact Cleveland Sam, Public Information Officer at (246) 227 1892 or

via e-mail @ CSam@cxc.org.