— says Dr Wesley as QC urges gov’t to examine options if complaints not addressed

OFFICIALS from Guyana’s premier secondary school, Queen’s College, are calling for Guyana to consider leaving the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) if the regional institution does not look into the alleged mass discrepancies in its 2020 examinations.

Questioned about this situation during a virtual press conference on Friday, CXC Registrar and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Wayne Wesley, would only say that the examination body strives to serve the Caribbean nations, and is not looking for any of them to leave.
“At no time we seek to reduce those persons that we serve. We have always been reaching out and ensuring that we provide them with the service that they need,” he said, even as he announced that the Council will not be doing a widespread review of its 2020 examinations, notwithstanding widespread call for such by stakeholders all across the Caribbean.

Established in 1972 as an institution of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), CXC was created to administer examinations to replace those offered by the General Certificate of Education (GCE), a United Kingdom (UK) institution.
The Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) was established as the equivalent to the GCE Ordinary Level examinations while the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) was created to rival the GCE Advanced Level examinations.
However, given the backlash over the Council’s administering of the 2020 exams, some persons believe it is perhaps the right time for Guyana to go back to GCE or another alternative.

“We did indicate our intention that if CXC does not bend we will petition to remove Guyana from the CXC. There are other examination bodies and we can very well carry our business there,” Principal of QC, Jackie Ralph asserted during a press conference on Thursday.
Ralph said the school has broached the bid with Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, when the school officials met with her on Wednesday.
Efforts to contact Minister Manickchand for a comment on the situation proved futile.
Also speaking on the issue, at the Thursday press conference was the school’s External Examinations Coordinator, Samantha Liverpool, who said the suggestion was not a mere empty threat.

NEED COMPETITION
“We need a competition for CXC. We as a school are willing, many of our students have left here to write SAT and GCE; we can prepare them for it,” Liverpool established.

The Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) is administered by the College Board in the USA. SAT as well as GCE are currently offered at a number of schools and institutions in Guyana but not as widespread as the CXC examinations.
For 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which effected school closures across the Caribbean since March, the Council delayed its customary May/June examinations, and instead, administered them in July/August. The examinations were modified to exclude the regular Paper Two component.
Customarily, students are scored in the exams, based on their performance in a multiple-choice Paper One, the Paper Two, and pre-exam School-Based Assessments (SBAs) or internal Assessments. Each component accounts for a separate percentage of the student’s overall score.

SCORING METHOD
The students and their supporters are calling for the Council to explain how the percentage was redistributed this year, given the omission of Paper Two, and what the weighting and scoring methods for this year’s examinations were.
This was after CXC released the 2020 examinations results on Tuesday. Students from varying Caribbean nations said there were major discrepancies which included lower-than-expected grades and ungraded subjects seen from the results garnered from this year’s CSEC and CAPE.
“I am seeing results I’ve never seen. I asked [CXC] for the marking scheme. What is the weighting of the Paper 1 to the Paper 2. It’s my take, along with our PTA, old students, and current students, to say that we demand a regrading. We are asking that they prove our school did not meet the criteria based on their moderation.” Liverpool said.

On Friday, Dr. Wesley refused to explain how the weighting was done, and in contradiction said that the weighting remained the same as with previous years, despite continuous probing of how that could be possible when the previous years included a Paper Two. .
On Thursday, students from three of Guyana’s Grade ‘A’ schools- Queen’s College, The Bishops’ High, and the St. Joseph High School held protests to campaign against the situation.

Dr. Wesley said that CXC will only be working with official complaints received through its established query/review channel and encouraged affected students to ensure they submit their reports. The deadline for submitting the complaints is October 29, after which the official results will begin being declared from November 6.