Who is popular today?

THE EDITOR: After two years and counting, the world and its inhabitants are in the bowels of a pandemic, and CXC has, and continues to show, scant regard for its clients: the citizens of the Caribbean.
On January 1, CXC released on its site the timetable for the June CSEC and CAPE examinations. The date it scheduled for the start of the CAPE examination is April 12. This comes after the students who wrote the CSEC examination in June 2021 received their results on October 15. This is six weeks after the start of the academic year. After which schools had to interview and organise their students who desired to pursue further education at the CAPE level. Many schools were only able to have their students start in November. That is a significant amount of teaching and learning time lost for the students.
What CXC did, by releasing such an early date for the start of the examination, was to lay the full burden of preparation, without any adjustments, on the students, teachers and parents. The consequence is the students are given far less time to prepare for the examination and teachers have less contact time with their students. This robs the students of the full benefit of engaging with the subject and deriving deeper learning.
What are the students and parents to do? For those who have the means, they would have sourced extra lessons for their children in the hope of completing the content in time. What about those parents and students who do not have the means, those students whose parents have lost significant income due to the pandemic and are struggling to make ends meet, let alone find the money for extra classes?
What are the teachers to do? With a combination of online and face-to-face, the quality contact time a teacher has with his/her students is significantly reduced. Many teachers are overwhelmed by the content that needs to be covered and little time to accomplish it. Yet again, teachers are left to figure it out for the sake of their charges and giving them a quality education.
What could CXC have done? A number of options are available. One is the timetable could be adjusted to accommodate a later start for the CAPE Unit 1 students, thus allowing them more time to engage with the subject and prepare for the examination. CXC could have then organised a shorter correction time on its part for the Unit 1 examination in order for the results to be released on time. This would not have significantly interfered with the operations of the CXC examination body. It ought to take some of the burden and responsibility as an examination body.
What alternative do schools, students and parents have? With the limited time available to them this year for Unit 1 preparation, they may opt to do the Unit 1 after the two years of the CAPE course. Withdraw all Unit 1 entries and allow students the time to engage with the subject content.
Education during these pandemic years has suffered greatly. The negative effects on all Caribbean societies will certainly be felt within the next five to seven years. The students have been through a lot mentally. Yet CXC continues to add another trauma to their educational experience.

JACINTA HONORE

secondary school teacher
The post What is CXC doing to the Caribbean youth psyche? appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.