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SCHOOL-BASED ASSESSMENTS

a. General Comments

i. Preparation of Samples
The burden of preparing SBA samples in a digital format, when the SBAs are written tests, in
the case of Pure Mathematics, Business Subjects and other subject areas not site-moderated
represents significant job enlargement.

Unrealistic assumptions are being made that schools are well-equipped and teachers are well-
trained in scanning these documents and combining these with cover sheets etc. These placed
additional burdens on teachers who already have to create, prepare, examine and mark these
tests, within the context of other duties in the school.

When combined with the information from CXC that they will not advise schools if they
have received all samples and that penalties will be imposed, the process of preparing SBA
samples was onerous as the possibilities of sanctions loomed over principals and teachers.

ii. The Online System
Issue Recommendation
CXC WEBSITE:
 Updated forms were not posted in a timely manner, nor were A timely posting of
formats consistent with syllabus revisions information that is current
 A notice was issued that updated forms were available on the and updated.
evening of the day before the Local Registrar’s deadline.
THE ORS SYSTEM: DATA ENTRY
 Several occasions, difficulty logging in to the ORS System.
The page did not load. Many improvements
 The refreshing of the page made the data entry very difficult needed in this system to
and repetitive. The page would refresh very quickly before all enable it to become more
the fields for one student could be completed. This meant that user-friendly and
data had to be entered several times before it was saved. efficient.
 There were many times when upon completion of the data
entry for a subject, when the save button was clicked, an error
message would appear (“error generated, please contact your
local registrar with details”). All the data for that subject would
have to be re-entered. This occurred multiple times for the
same subject.
 The process of assigning individual candidates to the
respective teachers was very tedious with repetitive steps
before the candidates were successfully assigned.
SBA UPLOAD:
 The system for the naming of the files is one which may result Create simpler file names.

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