Students at Gwendoline van Putten School sitting the Social Studies exam.
ST. EUSTATIUS--In the past week the first English-language exams of the Caribbean Examination Council CXC were taken at the Gwendoline van Putten (GvP) School in St. Eustatius.
It concerns exams to conclude the lower form of secondary school. Since the introduction of the CXC school system, the lower form, officially called Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC) consists of three years.
On conclusion of CCSLC the students advance to either the academic stream, which is comparable to the Dutch theoretical VMBO or HAVO, or to the vocational stream, which is comparable to the Dutch MBO.
The academic stream within the CXC system is the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC). The vocational stream is called Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ). Both streams take two years.
CSEC students who want to go to university can follow the two-year Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) component.
The CXC exams are basically taken online. However, for the sake of certainty the exams are also available in hard copy. The CXC organisation sends the hard copy exams in a properly secured manner to a local registrar, who must be a representative of the Ministry of Education.
In Statia’s case the local registrar is a policy employee at the Education, Culture and Science Department of Government Service Caribbean Netherlands RCN.
The Statia students now taking the exams for the CCSLC lower form are the first to advance to the CSEC or CVQ streams. In Saba, the CSEC system has already been in use for nearly two decades. However, the CVQ system will be implemented for the first time there, like in Statia, in the new school year.
The switch to the CXC system is a consequence of the transition to English as the language of instruction in education on Statia. Considering that the Dutch school system is primarily Dutch-language based, an alternative English school system had to be found. After a thorough survey the CXC system emerged as the best option as it is recognised worldwide.
Students who conclude their CXC education at GvP School and Saba Comprehensive School may continue their studies in the Caribbean, but also in the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and Australia.
