CSEC 2016…CXC records decline in candidates but increase in subject entries

Aug 14, 2016 News

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Although the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has recorded a slight decline in the number of candidates who registered for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination this year, there has been a noticeable increase in the subject entries.
This observation was made by CXC Director of Operations, Mr. Stephen Savoury, when CXC on Friday announced the release of the 2016 results during a live broadcast from Anguilla.
“When we look at the statistics we see that interestingly enough for 2016, even though there was a small decline in the actual candidate entries, we saw an interesting dynamic development, where the subject entries for our candidates have increased,” said Savoury.
According to the Operations Director, CXC has noticed the increased subject taking trend with interest. In fact he disclosed that “it helps us to be able to understand and ask ourselves why this is happening and we think we have the answers based on our conversations with principals and ministry officials.”
And the plausible answer that CXC has been able to derive is that more candidates are striving to ensure that they matriculate.
“More persons are recognising that in order for them to take the step to the next level of their education attainment, which would be university and college, they need to be able to have four and ideally five CSEC subjects in order to make this progression, and therefore we are seeing more persons attempting more exams as the years progress,” Savoury explained.
And according to him, “this is an interesting dynamic that we believe will continue to go forward.”
The local Ministry of Education has had some discussion about candidates sitting an increasing number of CSEC subjects. The CSEC subjects, which are delivered by CXC are examined for certification at the General and Technical Proficiencies, which provide students with the foundation for further studies and entry to the workplace.
In order to ascertain each individual candidate’s performance, CXC applies a six-point grading scheme, which is used to report on the performance of the candidate under six overall and profile grades which fall under ‘Overall grades’ and ‘Profile Grades’.  The ‘Overall Grades’ are classified as I, II, III, IV, V, VI while the ‘Profile Grades’ are A, B, C, D, E and F.
CXC Registrar, Dr. Didacus Jules, during an interview with this publication, had disclosed that while he is aware of calls being made to limit the number of subjects candidates write at CSEC, the matter has not come up for deliberation at the level of CXC.
“We don’t consider it to be a matter under CXC’s purview; this is a matter for parents, the schools and ultimately the Ministry,” said Dr. Jules.
However, he said, “our view on it is that you should not put a limit on people’s capacity; whatever subject you feel you can do you ought to be allowed to do.”
The CXC Registrar underscored that one factor that must remain clear is that the number of subjects that are undertaken do not determine whether a candidate is able to secure the status of top regional performer. “That is the bottom line,” Dr Jules asserted.
Meanwhile, Savoury, at Friday’s forum, also revealed that in terms of candidate entries by gender, females outnumbered the males. This translated to females being 77,544 and males being 55,130. However, Savoury noted that while female candidates outnumbered their male counterparts in the majority of territories, Suriname was an exception – the male candidates outnumber the females.  But according to him, “I suspect the Suriname numbers will change drastically and the ladies will continue to dominate.”
According to Savoury, CXC’s mission is to provide the Region with syllabuses of the highest quality, valid and reliable examinations and certificates of international repute for students of all ages, abilities and interests. And he made it clear that “we take that mandate seriously at CXC.”
CXC is also tasked with providing services to educational institutions in the development of syllabuses, examinations and examinations administration, in the most cost-effective way, Savoury noted.
And he noted that “we believe that this is an important aspect of what we do, and as we continue to go forward our guiding principle in this regard is to place emphasis in a number of areas. We believe that fairness in our examinations, accuracy of our marking, reliability of the data and quality output are paramount to keep us focused on the task we have to perform.”
It is expected that the Ministry of Education will this week officially release the results of CSEC and CAPE results of local candidates.

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