Two secondary schools in the Caribbean have marked a promising early milestone for a groundbreaking new modular mathematics initiative rolled out by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), with participating students posting impressive pass rates in the program’s first assessment phase.
St. Mary’s Secondary School and Irene B. Williams Secondary School, the two institutions selected to pilot the Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEK) program for the 2025-2026 academic cycle, have delivered standout outcomes in the initiative’s opening module. According to CXC Local Registrar Maritza Weste, St. Mary’s Secondary achieved a 96.8% acceptable-grade rate for Module One, while Irene B. Williams Secondary recorded an 86% pass rate. Of the 40 students registered at St. Mary’s, 32 completed the first examination, with only two failing to earn an acceptable grade. All 43 registered students at Irene B. Williams successfully finished the module assessment.
Weste offered public commendation for both schools’ first-time performance in the pilot, noting that the outcome exceeds early expectations for an untested new program structure. Participating students completed Module One while enrolled in third form, and will move on to the intermediate Module Two during their fourth form year.
CTEK was developed to address longstanding challenges with the traditional CSEC mathematics assessment model, which requires students to master the full curriculum and sit a single high-stakes examination at the end of fifth form. By splitting the full subject content into three smaller, progressive, stackable modules, the new framework allows learners to build mastery incrementally, reducing the pressure and cognitive overload that often disadvantage students who struggle with cumulative mathematics coursework.
Weste emphasized that the modular restructuring does not come at the cost of academic rigor. The program retains the full academic standard of the traditional CSEC mathematics qualification, simply breaking content into more manageable learning blocks. The opening Module One covers foundational secondary mathematics concepts, including core consumer arithmetic. Module Two expands to intermediate topics such as algebra, logical reasoning, and applied measurement, while the final Module Three covers advanced content including geometry, trigonometry, vectors, and matrices.
A key feature of the new framework is that students earn incremental certification for every module they complete successfully. Once a learner passes all three modules, regardless of when they finish the sequence, they are awarded a full CSEC Mathematics certificate with a final consolidated grade. Education officials confirmed that individual module results are permanently stored on student records, and CXC will combine scores from all three components to calculate the final grade once all assessments are complete.
The pilot program is framed as an alternative pathway for students who find the pressure and volume of content in the traditional single-examination model overwhelming, and the strong early results provide the first empirical data to inform CXC’s future decisions about a potential broader rollout of the modular framework across the Caribbean.