The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has recorded an unprecedented rise in examination misconduct, with 80 cases reported in 2025, officials said during Friday’s results ceremony in the Cayman Islands.
Dr Nicole Manning, CXC’s Director of Operations, said the spike affects both CSEC and CAPE exams. CSEC alone reported 57 irregularities, up from 49 in 2024, while CAPE recorded 23, an increase of 17.
The most common violations involved unauthorized devices, which rose sharply to 39 cases in CSEC, from just 5 in 2023. Collusion also increased, with eight incidents reported this year. Manning warned students caught with prohibited items face cancellation of results and possible disqualification from other subjects.
“Do not bring devices into the exam. Students who use phones to look up answers risk losing results across multiple subjects,” she said.
CXC has introduced a graduated penalty system, distinguishing between possession and use of unauthorized devices.
The council also reported 3,593 absences across 98,160 subject entries, citing emergencies, illness, or lack of preparation. Hardship cases, such as family bereavements, fell slightly to 449 from 478 in 2024.
Results were released via the CXC student portal at 1 PM on Friday.
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Chat GPT and all the other AI devices. Don’t blame students blame AI
Who’s using the AI? Oh okay
If you can’t find the devices put signal jammers in the examination rooms. It’ll block all signals so they can’t access the internet. They can save some material, but they can’t know all the questions to save all the materials.
Wow. This is real bad
So, what’s new? They just found out what everybody knew all along, including the students?
The whole exam is a fraud. CXC, the countries, the exam centers, the invigilators, all of them are frauds.
What they found out is about the cellphones in the exam room and writing answers on parts of the body, etc.
They now need to check out all the other things. All the bragging about Grade Ones improvement in Physical Education. Do they know the dishonesty in how this subject is tested? Poor supervision, poor practical testing, etc. Even the students know that is a sure pass. BTW, why is it a subject?
Then the invigilators who just sit and use their phones throughout the exam without raising their heads.
Then giving exams and the school does not have the required amount of computers for each student at the same time, and the long breaks between the groups using the computers.
And the outsourcing of writers by parents of the SBAs for the students.
This list is very long.
CSEC is as rotten as ever and the students are only taking advantage of the multiple irregularities. It is time to investigate the whole thing. Soon no one will consider a CSEC pass as legit.
Cheating in CXC exams has been going on for decades now with the full knowledge of CXC top officials. The trend remains the same with Guyana being among its chief culprits, followed by Jamaica and Trinidad, the countries that annually boast the so-called top students. CXC top brass has been aware of this level of cheating from its inception, but has failed even after all these years to effectiveky address the problems of cheating. Perhaps the loss of this very significan income source was enough to discourage any remediation. MOE top officials, too, in ALL the territories are fully aware of this fact but , for reasons best known to them, refuse to upset the mango heaps that safeguard their position, imagined importance, salaries and other perks that come with the job. It’s a bloody scandal which will only get worse with the advent of AI.
@ Faithful National #1
You should be well aware “Cheating is the Caribbean” brand.
It permeates the fabric of the societies in question, as evidenced by the Top brass failure to address the issue as you observe.
Skulduggery is endemic of Caribbean society.
I think they hurting their own selves by their actions. Are these exams really necessary? Isn’t there another way to test the students? We complain every year yet nothing seem to have changed
Violations rise every year, yet CXC’s methods never seem to change. Why?
Cheating is a way of life. What does this say about The Caribbean as a Region, when something as simple as school leaving exams is loosing its integrity; and the parties responsible reports the problem and move on.
@Faithful National #1
The fact that Ai was released for public use in November 2023 does not mean cheating in exams will be increased.
That is only likely to take place where exam creators, managers and proctors find cheating of benefit to them.
There is not just a few rogue players in the CXC ecosystem. The dishonesty is institutional.
So as cheating becomes widespread don’t be ready blame Ai.
It’s interesting when the first interim Vice Chancellor was asked what he thought about Ai his response was that they have to make sure students don’t use it to chest.
In the mean time, UWI Five Islands held two bogus meetings on Ai called conferences; where none of the featured speakers could present a cogent message, argument or anything valuable about Ai.
So when the institutions are dishonest about their own shortcomings; what do you expect from the students?
Students only hurt themselves and their futures when they cheat. Best to learn and prepare for exams authentically and accept whatever grade is earned honestly.
AI for all is new technology. It’s too early for anyone to be certain how it might be most useful or when it might be harmful. Society is basically in the middle of a grand experiment. Early adopters can dabble but sometimes it’s best for others to wait before jumping on board a new tech train. For students, my opinion is that they should continue to master the traditional fundamentals of each subject. If AI becomes more clearly useful in their field then they might opt to use it later in life to increase efficiency at work. But, it is a mistake to believe that everyone can just stop traditional studying and work right now. Some people think AI is the future of everything but that is just speculation. The future is unpredictable. A good education is the best preparation for the future no matter how it goes.
This is sad. It’s a pervasive problem. We need to also ask about UWI…!!!
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