CXC gets F grade

Not only did the CXC website crash but its app also failed. For this performance, angry students gave CXC a fail grade.

Hitting out at CXC, some students called for an upgrade of the online release system with others suggesting results be issued to education ministries of member countries to distribute to students.

Sunday Newsday received a litany of complaints about the process yesterday.

“Unfair to CSEC students,” said a student who lives in San Juan.

“CXC needs to stop playing with children and get them their results,” criticised a CSEC student from Diego Martin.

“It was very unprofessional, it kept the students waiting,” said a CAPE student also from Diego Martin. A CSEC student from Morvant felt stressed out from checking the website all night long to find out how she did.

“The entire website was not working. I tried every 20 minutes up until five, six, this morning (yesterday) and it only started working after nine,” she said.

Some students found an alternative link to access the CXC portal bypassing the official connection.

“There was a link circulating, I got through with the link,” explained a CAPE student from Diego Martin.

“The link worked because I got earlier (on Friday),” disclosed a CAPE student from San Juan.

CXC is the sole authority to release students results on its website and not the education ministries in Caribbean territories. As some predicted, thousands of students across the region, including locally, tried to access the website all at once. There was an attempt by CXC to update the system with the release of an app earlier this year to assist students in obtaining their results, however, the app failed to deliver results just like the website.

“The app was just loading and sticking,” said the Morvant student.

Apart from considering allowing education ministries to release the results, students felt CXC needed to upgrade its digital system if results would continue to be issued online.

“They should invest to improve the digital infrastructure to better the service they provide,” suggested the San Juan student.

A few private schools students also reported being blocked, not because of the online glitch but by their schools administrators.

“My school blocked the site which is really unfair,” a private school student told Sunday Newsday.

A teacher, however, explained private schools may block students access if they have outstanding payments. Students need a code assigned to their schools to access the CXC website which the schools could bar. The teacher said students would be warned beforehand that access would be denied unless outstanding arrears are paid. And while they had an anxious night, most students were generally pleased with their results.

“Hard work really pays off, I’m so happy,” said the San Juan student.

“I got what I expected, so thankful.” For CAPE students who needed their results to submit to universities, they remained confident their applications would still be approved. Some students said the deadline to submit results for the University of the West Indies was August 17.

“I believe the universities make exceptions, they will understand when you bring in the results,” said the San Juan student. Many students plan to drop in their results tomorrow to both secondary and tertiary institutions.