CAPE students eligible for national schols

Some 36 additional advanced level scholarships — including the President’s Medal — will be made available for students doing the CAPE examinations from 2005. This was announced by Education Minister Hazel Manning at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall. The measure will cost $2.1 million. She said while CAPE would fully replace GCE in 2008, during the transition period (2004-2008) the 220 national scholarships awarded on the basis of the performance in GCE (Cambridge) exams would continue. This means students doing a combination of CAPE and GCE or CAPE only will fall outside of this net, she said.

“It is the ministry’s view that these students must share the same expectations of being awarded the President’s Medal and scholarships as their peers doing the Cambridge “A” Levels,” Manning stated. She said Cabinet yesterday approved the policy recommendations for the award of national scholarships under the CAPE system.  There will be six open scholarships out of 36 being offered to the top student in each of the following subject groupings: Business, Modern Studies, Language, Maths, Science and Environmental Science. There is also provision for a President’s Medal in each of the Maths/Science/Environmental Science category and in all the other combined subjects category.

The minister stressed however that students doing CAPE would only qualify for scholarships if they met the established criteria (for awarding scholarships based on the Cambridge “A” Level results). She said from September 2004, all schools with sixth forms were required to begin the CAPE syllabus in five subjects. There would also be the appointment of a scholarship committee which would review critieria for the award of scholarships based on CAPE. Manning said CAPE had been accepted by UK schools. She said teachers had been trained all of last year and during the vacation for teaching under the CAPE syllabus.