Editorial | If CTEC is to work ...

The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has declared the pilot of its modular exam and certification in mathematics an unqualified success.

So, it is now full speed ahead for the unrestricted roll-out of its Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC) programme. It is likely that other subjects for which passes in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams have been historically unsatisfactory will soon join mathematics on the CTEC roster.

However, as this newspaper warned in May as the council completed its assessment of readiness among pilot institutions, CXC has work to do to assure stakeholders that this isn’t a way to add steroids to its statistics by dumbing down the exams, or that it is sending false signals to employers about the competence of their prospective hires. In other words, upbeat statements about the value of modular, bite-size exams aren’t, by themselves, sufficient.

It is indisputable that the Caribbean has a crisis in education outcomes, and in no subject is this problem more obvious or acute than mathematics. Less than 40 per cent of the more than 70,000 students across the region who sit the subject at CSEC annually receive passing grades: 1 to 3. In Jamaica, that statistic has improved recently, reaching 48.7 per cent in this year’s summer exams, an increase of over 14 percentage points over three years.

CXC’s latest response to the maths crisis is to break its exam syllabus into three modules, which students can sit and receive certification for individually. More than 2,500 students participated in this year’s pilot. Those who were successful (88 per cent) have up to another three years to complete the other two components to receive full CSEC certification in the subject. The introduction of CTEC does not preclude other students from writing the full-blown CSEC maths exam.

“CTEC takes the subjects you know, the same syllabus, the same standard, the same rigorous standard, and breaks them down into focused modules that students can master and be assessed on and be certified for step by step,” said CXC’s Registrar and CEO, Wayne Wesley.

“In other words, CTEC is fit, focused, individualised learning,” Dr Wesley said. “Under its guidance, under its guiding target framework, every module completed is a credential earned that is banked, portable, and that builds towards the qualification.”

LOGIC

There is, on its face, logic in this argument, not least because of the potential psychological gain of removing the “all-or-nothing” threshold students face in a single terminal exam, especially in a subject for which teaching specialisation is limited and which students often approach with fear.

Further, as CXC has suggested, students can accumulate stackable certification, allowing some school leavers, who might otherwise have been overlooked, to enter the job market with proof of at least basic, or baseline, competence.

There is a danger, though, of employers assuming that a credential for the first module of the CTEC exam, covering basic conceptual foundations, is really a higher tier of qualification and that the certificate holder has a higher level of knowledge than is the case. A potential risk from this is a devaluation of the CTEC certification if employers’ expectations are not matched by what is delivered.

Put another way, labour-market signalling is important. There has to be clarity about what CTEC modules are, and the value to be expected from those who hold their credentials. Transparency must include how transcripts are formulated and the relationship between CTEC and CSEC certifications.

Further, CXC and other stakeholders must address whether CTEC accreditation, accumulated in three phases, with perhaps staggered grades, is of genuine equivalence and demonstrates the same level of mastery as certification achieved in a single, cohesive effort. This question must be confronted, not in an attempt to belittle or undermine the new system, but to ensure that, if it is in place, it can enjoy legitimacy.

LINEAR

In a cumulative subject like mathematics, learning is linear. Module 3 relies entirely on the foundational retention of modules 1 and 2. If a student passes Module 1 in Year 3, sits on it, and takes Module 3 two years later, how does CXC guard against the ‘pass and forget’ phenomenon, and does accumulating three staggered passing grades genuinely equal cohesive, simultaneous mastery of the subject?

Related to the previous question is a concern about the unwitting deeper entrenchment of the two-tier system that is all too common in Caribbean education systems. In this scenario, better-resourced traditional and elite schools that are fed with better-prepared students will continue to have better education outcomes. Their students will write CSEC exams while students in under-resourced schools default to CTEC.

If modular exams represented by CTEC are to deliver real value, they mustn’t be in lieu of, but part of, a deeper and broader reform that lifts all outcomes and achieves equality and equity. Put another way, CTEC should be one instrument in overturning the region’s education apartheid.