On Friday, May 17, some 219 Grade Six students from the six Government-run Primary Schools sat the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment Examination (CPEA) at the Rodney MacArthur Rey Auditorium.
It was the second such annual examination for students who will be entering the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School in September this year.
Ms. Colleen Horsford, Education Officer responsible for examinations, spoke to The Anguillian about the exam: “It looks at standardising primary education across the region when children have to travel from one place to another,” she explained. “It makes it easier because the qualifications they have will be the same. Part of the examination is course work and the other part is a written exam. It is the same format as those other CXC exams that we are familiar with.”
The subjects in which the students were examined were Mathematics, Language and Science by way of a multi-choice paper. Each of the three examination sessions, held on one day, lasted for one hour and fifteen minutes.
Ms Horsford was pleased to have former Head Teachers, in particular, organising the students and conducting the examination sessions.
The CPEA was introduced by the Caribbean Examinations Council as a regional assessment aimed at providing the foundation for a seamless transition of students to secondary education, according to a CXC statement. The information also explained that the CPEA will “facilitate portability of qualifications across the Caribbean region and should have two main closely-related effects. One is “assist with the quality measures in the primary education system” and the other is to “offer a common measure across schools and territories in the region.”
The CPEA replaces what was originally known in the region as the common entrance examination.
