Editorial | CXC’s first step …

In the face of regional outrage, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) appropriately abandoned its plan to cut a number of STEM subjects from its roster because too few students enrolled for them.

That, however, should only be the first step. Now that the examination body has recovered its senses, it must explain the process by which the original decision was made, apparently without consultations with regional education ministers. It must also say what mechanisms have been put in place to prevent a repeat of this kind of folly.

At the same time – as this newspaper proposed when the CXC’s misfeasance came to light last month – Caribbean governments must launch a major campaign to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in the region’s school, which in Jamaica’s case must include making reading and writing and doing sums the critical mission of the island’s primary schools.

ARGUABLE CASE

Taken at face value, CXC might have appeared to have had an arguable case for ending its exams in design technology, green engineering and electronics and electrical engineering at its advanced CAPE level; and in agricultural science (double award) for secondary education (CSEC) certificates. For instance, in 2022, only 982 students enrolled for the CSEC agricultural science – a three per cent decline on the previous year. This continued the fall of recent years.

At the advanced CAPE level in 2022, a minuscule 15 students enrolled for Unit 1 in the design technology exam. There were none for the more advanced Unit 2.

Though the numbers for the other subjects were not as bad as in industrial design, they were far from healthy, mostly below 200. The grades, too, were mostly mediocre – or worse.

If the CXC were a private firm, with a mandate to maximise profit for its shareholders, its management’s decision to discontinue the STEM exams would be considered normal business practice; the excision of a potential loss-making product.

The CXC, however, isn’t just some other business. It was established by treaty by Caribbean governments to provide a relevant secondary education certification system for the region, to support its economic and social development.

It was an appreciation of this context that came through on Tuesday when Wayne Wesley, CXC’s registrar and CEO, announced the reversal of the problematic exams decision.

“In the meeting this morning with (education) ministers and hearing their perspective on some of the challenges and concerns that they have, as well as listening to the voices of our key stakeholders in the public, we then decided that it is in the best interest, the collective regional good, to (let) these subjects continue to be made available to the region,” Dr Wesley said.

Essentially, what that meeting accomplished was, first, getting the cart and the horse in their right sequence, and taking a sensible approach to a serious matter of Caribbean education policy. Having STEM as a pivotal part of Caribbean education is vital if the region is to create a technology-aligned, competitive economy, worthy of the 21st century.

Against that backdrop, it is unfathomable that CXC could, for whatever reason, roll back testing in key STEM subjects without engagement with education policymakers. The “collective regional approach” to promoting STEM education, which Dr Wesley said was agreed upon, was the rational procedure from the start.

READ AND WRITE

But a prerequisite for all formal education is being able to read and write – the foundation of literacy. That, unfortunately, is an area in which Jamaica faces a crisis.

Up to a third of Jamaica’s children complete their primary education illiterate. Indeed, as the Patterson Commission on transforming the island’s education system noted, the primary exit profile (PEP) exam for grade six students in 2019 revealed that 56 per cent could not write and 57 per cent could not extract information from simple English sentences. Indeed, more than four in 10 grade six students in last year’s PEP exams didn’t meet the proficiency requirements for language arts. They would require help to bring them up to base for the start of their secondary education at grade seven. This reading/literacy deficit for large swathes of students continues throughout high school.

A student who struggles to read is unlikely to be enrolled in STEM classes, so won’t be signed up for CXC exams in those subjects. Which is why getting reading and arithmetic right at primary school is vital. It ought to be the mission.

In this regard, this newspaper again insists on the end to the system of automatic promotion from class to class in primary schools. Promotion must be based on a child’s ability to read at his or her age level.

Such a policy must be supported by legislation and underpinned by a battalion of reading specialists to provide support where problems exist.