Basseterre: St. Kitts: Friday, February 23 principals and education officials participated in the 2022 – 2023 academic year Common Exam Review activity hosted by the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU).
Mrs Amanda Edmead Director, of the Curriculum Development Unit, briefly shared the imperative for the exam review, “After a three-year hiatus due to Covid, we resumed the Common Exams in the secondary schools from first to third form. We felt it was important for us to go through the results from the Common Exams to provide schools with an idea of how students performed, the areas where there are gaps or weaknesses, areas where we need to improve, and what strategies we should implement to support our students. Thus, it is very important that when we conduct any assessment, whether it is the Common Exams or the National Exams at Primary schools we share the results with our stakeholders.”
“Today’s Session was with the Secondary school principals and the Education Officers on both St. Kitts and Nevis. The purpose was to share with them the data that we [CDU] would have analyzed from the administration of the Common Exams in Mathematics, Communication Studies, and Integrated Science in 2023. By sharing with the schools, they are now able to see at both the national and individual school levels the areas where their students are doing well, and the areas where their students may not be doing well, and devise strategies to address the areas where they are not doing well. For the Ministry, it will enable them to bring forward support policies that can be established to assist,” expressed Mrs. Edmead.
Commenting on the projected outcomes of the session for her unit, Director Edmead shared, “From this session, we [CDU] will be able to examine the curriculum to identify the areas that students may be struggling with, whether or not the curriculum is too heavy for the schools, what areas may need to be removed or added. Additionally, by looking at the data we may be able to determine areas where there may be a need for professional development.”
The Common Exams will enable curriculum developers to better understand the main ideas and concepts essential for the foundation of further learning.