For years, secondary education systems across the Caribbean, including that of Dominica, have grappled with a persistent, frustrating challenge: widespread underperformance in mathematics that leaves many learners locked out of formal academic recognition, despite years of effort. Now, a new modular assessment initiative from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is showing early promising results that have earned high praise from Dominican education officials.
Dominica’s Chief Registrar Magalie Celestine publicly commended the CXC’s new Caribbean Targeted Education Certificate (CTEC) program during the August 31, 2026 presentation of CSEC/CXC assessment results, held at the Dominica Public Service Building. She outlined the long-standing gaps the new program aims to fix, noting that hundreds of Dominican students have attempted the traditional CSEC Mathematics examination multiple times without earning a passing grade. Some private candidates have even sat the exam three or four times, walking away with no formal documentation to acknowledge the math skills they did develop over years of secondary schooling. Under the legacy one-and-done assessment model, learners who cannot complete the full syllabus for any reason—personal, financial, or academic—leave the education system with nothing to show for their time and effort.
The CTEC program, which ran its first pilot during the May-June 2026 examination cycle, addresses this gap by reimagining how math assessment is structured. Unlike the traditional full single-subject examination, CTEC retains CXC’s existing rigorous syllabus and quality standards, but splits the full mathematics curriculum into smaller, manageable standalone modules. Candidates can master each module, complete its assessment, and earn formal certification for their completed work incrementally, rather than having to pass the entire full subject at once to receive any recognition.
This modular design ensures that learners who face interruptions to their studies do not leave empty-handed, and it also creates a clear, low-pressure pathway for them to return to their education at a later date to complete remaining modules and earn their full credential. For Dominica’s inaugural pilot, 50 candidates were registered from two local institutions: the Adult Education Division and the Dominica Technical College (BTC). Of that group, 35 candidates ultimately sat for the first CTEC Mathematics module assessment, 30 of whom were female and five male.
Early results from the pilot far exceeded expectations, Celestine reported, with 33 out of 35 participating candidates—representing a 94.3 percent pass rate—earning acceptable grades between A and D for the first module. In an additional boost for successful learners, CXC has pledged to fully cover all examination fees for the second and third CTEC Mathematics modules for these 33 candidates, as long as they continue to meet acceptable grade standards moving forward.
Celestine was careful to clarify that completion of a single module does not equate to a full mathematics qualification. Candidates must successfully pass all three required modules to earn their full CTEC subject certificate. Even so, she emphasized that the skills and competencies assessed in the first module are fully aligned with the existing CSEC Mathematics curriculum, meaning learners do not have to learn disconnected content to participate in the modular program.
Looking beyond the strong pass rate, Celestine noted that the 2026 pilot proves the modular assessment model delivers meaningful benefits beyond just scores: it builds learner confidence, formally recognizes incremental learning progress that would otherwise go unacknowledged, and creates a realistic, achievable pathway for learners who have struggled with the traditional system to finally complete their secondary mathematics qualification. For a region that has long struggled with math underperformance, this new framework could reshape how secondary education credentials are awarded and open up new opportunities for thousands of returning and struggling learners across the Caribbean.