Caribbean education finds its voice in Kingston

For four days, some 400 educators, policymakers and thought leaders from 27 countries, converged at a landmark covenant with Caribbean learners. The CXC’s Inaugural Regional Education Conference and Ministerial Forum sought to frame a defining moment for the region’s educational story.

“Ten out of ten.” That was how Teenisha Heath-Adams, an educator from Trinidad and Tobago, summed up her experience at the close of the CXC Inaugural Regional Education Conference and Ministerial Forum last week in Jamaica that brought together nearly 400 of the Caribbean’s sharpest minds in education governance and practice.

“The fact that this conference was so relevant. And so, actionable, I feel like we are heading in the right direction. So, honestly, it’s just a 10 out of 10 experience for me and the entire thing wowed me,” said Heath-Adams as she spontaneously responded in one the many feedback sessions at the conference structured around education policy, pedagogy and practice.

The plenaries and workshops ranged from the use of generative AI in Caribbean classrooms to persistent gaps in literacy and numeracy; from flexible education pathways for learners who need alternative routes to qualification, to the landmark signing of a Partnership Engagement Agreement with a consortium of Caribbean employer groups – a formal declaration that preparing learners for the world of work is not CXC’s mandate alone.

From the first notes of the CARICOM Song that opened the proceedings on Tuesday morning to the formal commencement of the Ministerial Forum on Thursday, the gathering crackled with the energy of a region that has decided it is high time for action on digital equity for relevant examinations, and for education systems that honour the full range of Caribbean talent.

The conference, originally planned for October 2025 on Jamaica’s north coast, was upended by the passage of Hurricane Melissa. Yet, even as the storm rewrote the calendar, Dr Wayne Wesley, CXC’s registrar and CEO, pointed out that the enthusiasm for the gathering never wavered. “This tells you something about the hunger that exists for this kind of regional conversation”, observed Dr Wesley.

HUMAN INVENTION

He told the guests, who were in their numbers at the ballroom of The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston, that education is the only human invention that compounds across generations. “Every other resource – wealth, land, technology – can be hoarded or hacked, bombed or destroyed. But knowledge, once transmitted, multiplies. A teacher reaches 30 students. Those students reach thousands more. The compounding never stops. You are here because you believe Caribbean education can and must be better.”

The breadth of the gathering was itself a statement. 13 serving Caribbean ministers of education participated in the regional gathering. Delegates travelled from 27 countries, including Malta, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands.

In her keynote address, Dana Morris Dixon, minister of education, skills, youth and information, described the conference as an example of Jamaican resilience, praising the determination of the Education Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Kasan Troupe; Chief Education Officer Terry-Ann Thomas-Gayle and her entire team. “Our education systems across the Caribbean are being tested, and reshaped by new technologies, and we have to be bold to reimagine our realities all at once”, she encouraged the educators. “In the midst of this AI whirlwind, we must preserve what is most human and essential in education – curiosity, character, critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and purpose – we cannot lose sight of those goals,” she added.

EQUALITY AS THE NEW EXCELLENCE

Her views were shared by Guyana’s minister of education and new chair of CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), Sonia Parag, who counselled that, in embracing the technological changes to learning and teaching, the literacy and numeracy model adopted by the Region and Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) must not be abandoned. She said slower learners still stand to benefit from the classroom interaction with teachers and traditional learning.

“If a child cannot read with comprehension, then an e-library offers little value, and, if a student cannot reason with numbers, then the promise of coding, data analysis and digital innovation becomes inaccessible. As such, digitisation must not distract us from these fundamentals, it must strengthen and promote them. It is essential that we work closely with the Caribbean Examinations Council to ensure that our system of teaching, learning, and assessment remain aligned and fit for purpose”, said Minister Parag in her feature address to the meeting.

For CXC’s part, Wesley said the conference and ministerial forum were an expression of the new “activist CXC’ – an organisation that has long since outgrown its role as examination administrator and stepped fully into the arena of Caribbean educational advocacy.

“We are listening. We are engaging. We are responding,” he declared, his voice carrying the weight of an institution at a pivot point. “Equity is the new excellence. Every Caribbean learner deserves a chance to shine, and CXC is equal to the moment.”

The conference was organised weeks after CXC made history by administering fully electronic and hybrid examinations across 17 Caribbean states in the January 2026 cycle – more than 10,000 candidates and nearly 18,000 subject entries. The results, Dr Wesley reported, were unambiguous: Caribbean students are ready for e-examinations. “Our Gen Z and Alpha learners are digital natives,” he said. “Learning and assessment systems must be congruent with how they process knowledge.”

Nicole Manning, director of operations at CXC and conference chair, also challenged the educators to pivot on the inherent strengths in the Caribbean’s educational ecosystem, and to decisively adapt to the demands of the digital era to transform instruction and learning in the classroom.

“This is a covenant with our children, our communities, and the Caribbean future we choose to build”, said Manning.

Sheree Deslandes, CXC’s director of corporate services, in her concluding remarks, summed up the conference as “a clarion call” challenging every actor in Caribbean education to embrace excellence as not a destination for the few, but as a birthright for every Caribbean learner.

“The rivers meet,” said Deslandes. “The CXC Inaugural Regional Education Conference and Ministerial Forum have given us analysis, dialogue, and shared conviction. Now, this moment of confluence begins, where that conviction must become commitment, and commitment must become policy.”