- CLAUDINE HOUSEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Sixth-form sociology students at Herbert Morrison Technical High School catch up on their studies. The newly-introduced CXC associate degree will affect some students at this level.
Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
THE CARIBBEAN Examinations Council (CXC) has strongly defended its associate degree, introduced recently.
The associate degree will be awarded to sixth-form students who successfully complete some combinations of subjects at the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).
This came out of a decision by the CXC Council in 2004 to cluster the CAPE units to offer associate areas, some of these being the sciences, humanities and modern languages.
The rationale, according to Dr. Lucy Steward, CXC Registrar, was that the content of the CAPE subjects matched the content of associate degrees awarded by other examination bodies.
"Also, students presenting a certificate seemed to be at a disadvantage when compared with students presenting an associate degree with equivalent kinds of content."
CRITICISMS
This development has not been received with universal acclaim, however, as some critics see it as a retrograde step - not in the interests of students.
One such critic, Dr. Dennis Minott, of the A-QuEST group, in a passionate appeal to parents last week on the Power 106 programme, Good Evening Jamaica, entreated them not to allow their children to participate in the associate degree.
This certification, he asserted, would not be recognised by American colleges and would ruin their chances of receiving financial aid from such institutions.
The reason for this, Dr. Minott said, is that a student with an associate degree is classified as a transfer student rather than a first-year entrant, and transfer students are, in most instances, not given financial aid.
Furthermore, according to Dr. Minott, these students will not receive any extra credit for the associate degree.
Jimm Crowder, director of International and Transfer Admissions at Macalester College in Minnesota, United States, shares Dr. Minott's concerns.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, he confirmed that his institution would have grave reservations about accepting students with CAPE's associate degree, and certainly would be unwilling to grant additional credits on the basis of that qualification.
"My question is, why would an American university look to grant an additional year of credit to the CAPE programme when equivalent programmes - such as the British A'Level - remain where they are?" Crowder asked.
INTEGRITY QUESTIONABLE
Furthermore, Crowder said, the perception of the integrity of the CAPE examination might be called into question.
"If officials there are promoting it as an associate degree when these other systems, which are arguably the best in the world, would essentially have one year less credit than the CAPE, which is not superior to those other programmes."
Like Minott, Crowder is concerned that the CAPE system being essentially a 13-year programme, falls one year short of the generally accepted 14 years of schooling for associate degree students.
CXC's Steward downplayed that concern, however, saying that the associate degree was not designed just for students in the high schools, but for persons who had already left school and wished to do the examinations in units over a number of years to qualify for the associate degree.
To that end, she said, the CXC had set a limit of five years for the accumulation of such units.
QUALITATIVE IMPROVEMENT
As for the comparisons with the A'Levels and other equivalent examinations, Dr. Steward and Pro Registrar, Wesley Barrett, both asserted that, with CAPE including communications studies and Caribbean studies in the associate degree programme, this represented a qualitative improvement on the other examinations.
