CXC launches new certification programme

Aug 19, 2026 News

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(CMC) The Barbados-based Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Tuesday launched the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC) describing it as a “game changer”.
CXC Registrar and chief executive officer Dr. Wayne Wesley speaking at the ceremony where the regional examination body presented the results of its 2025-26 exams to students across the region, said that CTEC pilot in mathematics was “highly successful” in the May-June 2026 examinations.

According to CXC, it will present results for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate and Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence with particular attention being placed on CSEC Mathematics and English, which are compulsory subjects across the region.

It said that the Mathematics pass rate increased from 36 per cent in 2024 to 39 per cent in 2025, while the English A pass rate rose from 76 per cent to 80 per cent. However, the English B pass rate declined from 84 per cent in 2024 to 69 per cent last year. “With the approval of our Board of Governors, CXC is pleased to officially launch the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate, CTEC. CTEC takes the subjects you know, the same syllabus, the same standard, the same rigorous standard, and breaks them down into focus modules that students can master and be assessed on and be certified for step-by-step,” Wesley told the ceremony.

“In other words, CTEC is fit, focused, individualised learning. Under its guidance, under its guiding target framework, every module completed is a credential earned that is banked, portable, and that builds towards the qualification,” he said, adding that if life interrupts a learner’s journey, as life sometimes does, they no longer leave with empty hands.

“They have the ability now, or they will leave with evidence of the competence and an open door back into the system to continue and to complete their education. At CXC, we hold to the position that competence is competence, no matter how long it takes to achieve, and no matter the route by which it comes.”

He said CTEC is here to encourage learning, widen the door to certification, and help every Caribbean learner move forward. “As individual countries and as one region, we will keep rising until no learning in the Caribbean is ever wasted again,” he said, unveiling the official emblem of the CTEC, flanked by the Anguilla’s Education Minister, Shellya Rogers-Webster.

“May this mark become familiar in every school, in every Caribbean home, and every corner of our community. May it stand for a regional education system committed to nurturing the potential of every learner and guiding that potential towards excellence,” Wesley said.

He told the audience that in a global changing environment, it was necessary for the Caribbean “to meet this generation of learners where they are” aware of the need to master complex skills in structured stages every day on their own screens and on their own schedules. “Our children are not less capable than those who came before them. They are differently wired, digital first, and hungry for credentials that keep pace with their lives. Assessment model built in the 21st century cannot be expected to adequately serve a 21st century generation.” Wesley said that CTEC is assessment redesigned for learners without lowering by a single degree the standard, noting that “when we are designing CTEC, we ask ourselves, would the region embrace it?

The May-June session, 2,535 candidates wrote the Module 1 examination alongside those sitting the full CSEC examinations, adding “I am pleased, indeed, and I am proud to announce that of these 2,535 candidates who wrote CTEC Module 1 in the Mathematics pilot examination, 88 per cent achieved acceptable grades”.

He said across the entire Caribbean, only one candidate received the lowest grade and that “it simply means that most candidates are benefiting from the approach. “Measured against a generation in which barely one in three candidates succeed in a typical sitting, this achievement represents a remarkable turnaround. Let me be clear. A module is not a whole subject. The full qualification still requires completion of every module at the full standard. But that is precisely what these results demonstrate. “When learning is assessed in focused, achievable stages, our students do more than cope. They excel. They engage, persist, and succeed. The May-June Mathematics pilot proves that the modular approach works for students, for classrooms, and for the region.”

Wesley said that this landmark result belongs to the young people who earned it and that the competencies assessed in CTEC Mathematics Module 1 are already embedded in the CSEC Mathematics examination taken by tens of thousands of young people this year. “Having received that evidence, I am pleased to announce that on behalf of the Council, that approximately 35,000 candidates from that group, May-June 2023 CSEC Mathematics sitting, will be awarded the CTEC Mathematics Module 1 credential.

“This is a new day for our Caribbean learners. On the strength of this CTEC Mathematics pilot, the Caribbean Examinations Council is declaring to our students this simple truth. What you know counts. We hear you. We see you. Your learning has been seen, measured, and certified. “You are not at the end of the road. You are on your way to the staircase. Up the staircase, rather. The next step is waiting for you. In the age of artificial intelligence and exploding technological innovation, the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate, CTEC, is here to encourage you to be a lifelong learner and to think for yourself,” Wesley added.

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• Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC), certification programme, CXC

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