CAPE and our future scholars

THE EDITOR: I feel compelled to register my alarm and dismay on reading the Minister of Education’s declaration that CAPE will soon be with us. This “policy decision” is indeed frightening because those truly involved in Education — the secondary schools’ teachers and principals — are all too aware of the many procedural flaws that still plague the CXC’s O’Level examination after some thirty years! How then can we trust them with higher level examination? Has the goodly minister herself ever met with these stakeholders, these professionals who have to deliver the curriculum, to hear their views, to discuss this drastic move from the Cambridge A’level exam? Has she studied any Cape syllabus and noted its unrealistic demands — in comparison to Cambridge? Is she aware of the sense of uneasiness and distrust that persists among parents, teachers and students in Barbados where CAPE is that Government’s preferred examination — because after two years, perhaps even longer, Barbados’ teachers are still groping in the dark? Does she have any idea of the slip-shod, haphazard manner in which students’ scripts are marked — as neither the examiners/markers nor the time frame allotted for marking by CXC is ever adequate thus accuracy of marking is always compromised for speed? Does the minister know, for example, that there are teachers who mark scripts for some CAPE exams but they have never read the prescribed texts? Who has been consulted? Whose views have been accepted? Who has really been advising the minister — certainly no sensible right-thinking principal or Secondary school teacher!

According to the Honourable Minister, CXC is celebrating its 30th anniversary so the time is right for TT to join the other Caribbean territories and support CAPE. Do we introduce CAPE here as our anniversary gift to CXC? Is this a rationale for interfering with our children’s future? The Minister further states that The United Kingdom Recognition Centre (NARIC) “will be pleased  to recommend CAPE as a higher entry qualification” — but it is yet to do so and still yet to have this recommendation passed! Re-assure us, madame Minister, will the prestigious LSE or any European University accept our Open Scholarship winners who have CAPE qualifications? Will the renowned medical schools in Ireland recognise CAPE? Remember, not everyone depends on SAT scores, not everyone wants to study in the USA or at home in the Caribbean. Why restrict our children’s choices of institutions for tertiary education? There must have been very valid reasons/ concerns why TT resisted CAPE for so many years. Have our fears been allayed then? I seriously doubt it! The Minister and her advisors need to tread carefully and not rush into making a decision that will impact so acutely on our children’s future. Give CXC more time to put its house in order; give CAPE a few more years to really prove itself as a truly suitable replacement for the internationally known and accepted Cambridge Advanced Level Examination.

F SHAH
Rousillac