The Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) is a secondary-level qualification developed by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and offered in the Caribbean region since 2007 for both secondary school students and adult learners.

In order to facilitate understanding and recognition of the CCSLC, CXC commissioned the UK NARIC to evaluate the programme and benchmark it with programmes at similar levels in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States education systems.

The findings of the UK NARIC study reveal clear similarities in curriculum content, learning outcomes and school-based assessment tasks at years/grades generally comparable to the first two or three years of secondary education in Australia, Canada, UK and the USA. Consequently, UK NARIC finds the CCSLC broadly comparable to successful completion of Key Stage 3 (Year Nine) in the UK and Year Nine in Australia, Canada and the USA. (See Figure 1 below)

UK NARIC is satisfied that the CCSLC programme overall provides suitable preparation both in terms of subject knowledge and general competencies to enable students to progress to the subsequent year of study in each of the four countries examined – Key Stage 4 (Year 10) in the UK, Year 10 in Australia, Grade 10 in Ontario and Grade 10 in the USA.

The UK NARIC conclusions are based on the overall comparability of the academic level of the CCSLC to standards in Australia, Canada, UK and the USA. The conclusions are not a measure of direct equivalence to a specific programme, or subject-for-subject equivalence.

 

CXC qualification	Australia	Canada	UK	USA
CCSLC	Successful completion of Year Nine	Successful completion of Grade Nine	Successful completion of Key Stage Three (Year Nine)	Successful completion of Grade Nine

Figure 1