St. Vincent and the Grenadines is yet to hear how its students performed in this year’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) examination because of some “controversies” and “little snags”, a government minister has disclosed.
Speaking on the ruling Unity Labour Party’s radio station Wednesday night as he gave an update on schools in his constituency after the new academic year started two days prior, Minister of Health St. Clair ‘Jimmy’ Prince said the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) “still has to rectify some things so people have to wait a little while”.
“There are some controversies, some little snags that they have to work out before they are able to give a final result here,” he said.
“I expect that the children, of course, would do well,” added Prince, who was Minister of Education between 2015 and 2020.
“Despite all the trauma and the anxiety over the past few years, they still held their own, so far. It is not easy. We had a pandemic and in the middle of that, we had a very devastating eruption of La Soufriere . . . So we must congratulate the students, and the teachers and the parents for being so resilient.”
One educator said the results had not been released because there was a “scramble to rectify people’s grades”.
“There are lots of ‘ungraded’ although people submitted SBAs. My students all are ‘ungraded’ although they submitted their work,” the teacher said.
On August 28, Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Curtis King, said he was looking forward “with great anticipation” to the CSEC and CAPE results.
This year’s exams were the first since hundreds of teachers were fired over the COVID-19 vaccine mandate last December and replaced with first-time teachers as well as retired educators.
Several schools were also used as emergency shelters after the volcano erupted in April 2021 and students only returned to the physical classroom in October.
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers’ Union has said the dismissal of the teachers over the vaccine mandate left a gaping hole in the teaching service.
However, King said he hoped when the students’ performance this year was being analyzed, people would “compare apples with apples, not bananas with apples”.
CMC
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