The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) will host a two-member team from the Saba Comprehensive School for a three-day visit, March 10-13.
The members of the team are Constance Patricia Clement, deputy principal and department head of the Academic Stream, and Jill Yearwood, career guidance counselor at the school.
While in Barbados, the team will hold discussions with officials of CXC on various issues including examinations administration, school based assessment, curriculum development, teacher training and professional development, and CXC’s examinations system.
The team will also visit two secondary schools in Barbados — Harrison College and St Leonard’s Boys School. At Harrison College, team members will observe the administration of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), while at St Leonard’s they would observe both the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC), and interact with teachers who deliver these programmes.
“The purpose for this visit is to gain more in-depth information on several CXC-related issues which could benefit education on Saba,” Hemmie van Xanten, director of the Saba Comprehensive School stated.
Saba current offers the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), and van Xanten said the Dutch territory is exploring how it can make appropriate use of the other examinations offered by CXC, such as the CCSLC, CAPE and CVQ.
According to van Xanten, Saba is the only school within the Netherlands which has been granted permission to teach in English and the CSEC syllabus is used as the content.
“The visit of the team from Saba is an opportunity for CXC to deepen its existing relationship with the islands of the Dutch-speaking Caribbean territories,” explained Didacus Jules, registrar of the Caribbean Examinations Council.
“Schools in St Maarten and two private institutions in Suriname already offer CXC examinations and CXC has plans to embrace countries of the Spanish- and French-speaking Caribbean which may have an interest in CXC offerings.”