Barbados is yet to make a decision about whether to replace the Common Entrance Examination with a Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) test already in use in some Eastern Caribbean nations.
Deputy Chief Education Officer David Clement told the Sunday Sun that “discussions are going on” about the CXC’s Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) but no decision had been taken.
In an interview, CXC registrar Dr Didacus Jules said that as a member country of the CXC Council, Barbados was represented at meetings where the CPEA had been discussed, and local authorities were in possession of all the information about the test.
The CPEA focuses on the performance of students over a three-year period, with classroom work done over two years preceding the exam accounting for 40 per cent of the final mark.
CXC officials have claimed that the test was much broader than the Common Entrance as it would help improve numeracy and literacy and encourage greater pupil and parental participation.
Jules said CXC had devised the CPEA at the request of governments of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to find a replacement for the Common Entrance, or 11-Plus.
