CXC Registrar addresses SBA controversy

School Based Assessments (SBAs) remain one of the most effective ways that a student’s knowledge of a particular subject can be measured. Taking into consideration that the SBAs are a continuous assessment, the best method is for these assessments to be done at the particular school which the students attend and conducted by the teacher responsible for that subject and those students.

This was one of the viewpoints that was put forth by Registrar at the Caribbean Examinations Council CXC), Glenroy Cumberbatch, who said that this form of assessment still remains one of the best ways that teachers can gauge how well a student knows the material of a particular subject.

At the time he was responding to comments posed by Professor Pedro Welch concerning the School Based Assessments, how and when teachers who conduct and mark these assessments should be paid and the amount of time and effort involved in marking these papers, as well as whether or not these SBAs are that beneficial to the students.

Furthermore, these assessments are conducted by those persons who know the students’ abilities and the quality of the work that they produce on a regular basis and not just on a one-off basis as teachers are the ones who educate these students on a daily basis within the classrooms.

“I think that one of the major changes is that there are more subjects now than they were, but their function is still the same. It is still a very reliable way of marking the students’ work that takes place on a day to day basis in a classroom, supervised by that person who knows those students the best, and who is monitoring that work over a period of time and giving credit for that work that is part of a curriculum that they have studied, and so that part of it hasn’t changed.”

Cumberbatch stated that what has changed, however, is the method by which the students are assessed. Nevertheless, with this being said, they at the Caribbean based Examinations Council have still tried to position it in such a way that all parties benefit from the process.

“What has changed, though, is that instead of doing nine, you would do one project now for history, and that one project can also include two projects including more than one student within that process. So we have looked at it, we have tried not to remove that part of it of teachers’ contribution to information that would help to make judgement of the student’s ability. But we have tried to make it in a way that works for both purposes – to assist teachers, but also to give reliable information to us.”