CXC Registrar: CAPE recognised worldwide

Students with Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) qualifications can easily matriculate into tertiary education programmes around the world with confidence.

 

Assurance of this comes from Registrar of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), Glenroy Cumberbatch, as he noted that there is some concern as to whether CAPE is recognised outside of the Caribbean.

 

“After all these years, I do not know why that concern still exists, but there is no problem at all with students who leave the Caribbean and go abroad with their CAPE qualification,” he stressed.

 

“CAPE is recognised all over the world. We have good links with Universities around the world to give credit to students who have come in with CAPE. For some they won’t have to do certain courses and in other cases some students get a year off or two years off their programmes when they travel to certain Universities overseas.”

 

“We hope to continue to do that with the help of all of our stakeholders, all of the people who work in committees, all of the people who work on panels and all of the teachers who everyday strive in the classroom to ensure that their students are taught and prepared well for the examinations.”

 

Cumberbatch was at the time addressing the Opening Ceremony of the 48th Meeting of CXC and the presentation of awards for Outstanding Performances in the May/June 2016 Examinations, held at the Hilton Barbados Resort.

 

Speaking about several of the examinations, he shared with educators that the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) offered since 2012, is currently embraced by a number of countries.He said that the examination focuses on a set of literacies, which are common to all primary curricula across the region and are necessary for students to achieve at higher levels of education. These include, Mathematical, Language, Civic, and Scientific which are all solidly grounded in learning theories espoused by Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky among others. The CPEA will therefore focus on the assessment of literacies and not individual subjects, as is the case with traditional end-of-primary examinations.

 

“Next year we will have our first students take the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and we will see how many of them turn out to be top awards. The relationship will be mapped out with those who have done CPEA and then go to do CSEC, compared with those who did not do CPEA and went onto CSEC.”

 

As it relates to Barbados and CPEA, Minister of Education, the Hon. Ronald Jones stated “I know we’ve had a little discussion in Barbados and we are still discussing… I have been Minister for close to eight years and I have not yet grown confident enough to move away from the Holy Grail.” (TL)