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(e) Updating of the lists of recommended texts for each Module.

8. The Assistant Registrar/SCD informed the Panel that these recommendations were
incorporated into a draft syllabus for CAPE® History that was sent to SUBSEC for approval and later
introduced at Teacher Orientation Workshops held in four territories across the region.

THE PANEL’S RESPONSE TO THE ISSUES RAISED

Teacher Feedback

9. The Assistant Registrar/SCD informed the Panel that feedback was obtained from
stakeholders across the region through letters, emails and telephone conversations. These territories
include Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados. The feedback highlighted concerns which
surrounded the length of the syllabus, the time period covered by the syllabus, the treatment of the
topic of slave systems within the Caribbean by the syllabus, and the inclusion of topics not considered
to be relevant to the subject.

10. Stakeholders had raised concerns about the time period chosen for study in the new syllabus.
Stakeholders also shared that there was no clear chronology and that the pre-1800s period was not
covered by the syllabus. Therefore, stakeholders recommended that the syllabus begin at the 1800s.
The Panel, having reviewed the concerns raised by stakeholders, agreed that the 1800s should be the
starting point of the syllabus. Consequently, the Panel edited the Rationale to reflect that the syllabus
will revert to the original time frame captured in the draft syllabus proposed by the Review
Committee. The Panel also adjusted some of the Aims of the syllabus in light of concerns raised by
stakeholders. An example of an Aim which has been modified is Aim 8 which had an explicit focus on
sexual orientation. The Aim was revised to be more general in nature and now reads develop a
commitment to gender equity and respect for people of different ethnicities, customs and beliefs.

11. Stakeholders expressed concern that the syllabus did not adequately treat with slave systems
within the Caribbean. According to one stakeholder, “in this module students are asked to consider
the overthrow of the slave system but no requirement to study the slave system; why should any
syllabus on Caribbean History exclude the study of the slave system and slavery as an institution
itself”? The Panel, in responding to this concern, determined that the syllabus would better suit the
needs of the learners if it reverted to Unit 1, Modules 1 and 2 from the 2015 draft syllabus as
recommended by the Review Committee (see Table 1 below).

Table 1

Changes to Unit 1: Modules 1 and 2

EXISTING SYLLABUS PROPOSED SYLLABUS

(Approved by SUBSEC in April 2016) (See Appendix III)

Unit 1 Unit 1

Module 1: Indigenous Societies in The Modern Module 1: Indigenous Societies

Atlantic Region

Module 2: Freedom Delayed (1790–1900): Module 2: Slave Systems: Character and

Challenges to the Creation of a Free Dismantlement

Society

It was decided by the Panel that Unit 1, Module 3 of the 2016 syllabus could remain with a few
modifications. The modifications include shifting Theme two (2) from Module two (2) to being the first
Theme for Module three (3). Additionally, the title of the Theme was edited to better reflect the focus
of the Theme. It was edited from Obstacles to the Creation of Free Societies to read Freedom Delayed:

4