Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) has an­nounced sweep­ing changes to its School-Based As­sess­ment (SBA) sys­tem, with tra­di­tion­al SBAs set to be phased out for sev­er­al non-prac­ti­cal Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) sub­jects be­gin­ning in 2027.

The move comes as the re­gion­al ex­am­i­na­tions body seeks to pre­serve the in­tegri­ty of its qual­i­fi­ca­tions amid the grow­ing use of gen­er­a­tive ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) by stu­dents.

Un­der the re­vised frame­work, sub­jects in­clud­ing Math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, Caribbean His­to­ry, So­cial Stud­ies and Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness will tran­si­tion from the tra­di­tion­al SBA to an ex­am­i­na­tion-based as­sess­ment known as Pa­per 032.

Stu­dents will re­ceive as­sess­ment top­ics ap­prox­i­mate­ly one month be­fore the ex­am­i­na­tion, al­low­ing them time to con­duct re­search and pre­pare their re­spons­es.

They will al­so be per­mit­ted to bring ref­er­ence notes in­to the ex­am­i­na­tion room be­fore com­plet­ing the as­sess­ment un­der su­per­vised con­di­tions.

Prac­ti­cal and project-based sub­jects, in­clud­ing Agri­cul­tur­al Sci­ence, Vi­su­al Arts, Mu­sic, Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion, Tech­ni­cal Draw­ing and Food, Nu­tri­tion and Health, will con­tin­ue to use the ex­ist­ing SBA mod­el.

The tran­si­tion will be in­tro­duced in phas­es. CAPE can­di­dates in non-prac­ti­cal sub­jects will move to Pa­per 032 for the May-June 2027 ex­am­i­na­tions, while CSEC schools will have the op­tion of us­ing ei­ther the ex­ist­ing SBA or Pa­per 032 in 2027 be­fore the new for­mat be­comes manda­to­ry in 2028. CXC said the changes are in­tend­ed to en­sure that as­sess­ments con­tin­ue to ac­cu­rate­ly mea­sure stu­dents’ knowl­edge and abil­i­ties while main­tain­ing con­fi­dence in the re­gion’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath said the min­istry will con­tin­ue to en­gage with CXC to as­sess the im­pact the changes will have on stu­dents, teach­ers and schools.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the min­istry said it re­mains com­mit­ted to col­lab­o­rat­ing with CXC and oth­er ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers to en­sure the tran­si­tion is care­ful­ly man­aged, sup­ports stu­dent suc­cess and main­tains the qual­i­ty and in­tegri­ty of the as­sess­ment process. It added that schools, par­ents and the wider pub­lic will con­tin­ue to be up­dat­ed as more in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art wel­comed the re­forms, say­ing they are a nec­es­sary re­sponse to the in­creas­ing use of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in ed­u­ca­tion.

“In this era, where there seems to be a mas­sive, in­creas­ing­ly rapid use of AI, this tends to com­pro­mise aca­d­e­m­ic hon­esty,” Stew­art said. “As such, the NPTA ap­plauds CXC for in­tro­duc­ing a new as­sess­ment mod­el. In so say­ing, how­ev­er, we want to en­sure that when this mod­el is in­tro­duced, our stu­dents are prop­er­ly guid­ed and sup­port­ed.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe, who re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al time to re­view the an­nounced changes be­fore of­fer­ing a for­mal re­sponse.