The Barbados-based Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) inaugurated its new headquarters in Barbados Wednesday with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Chairman Freundel Stuart saying it underscored the importance of the regional integration movement to Caribbean development.
Stuart, the Prime Minister of Barbados, said that the CXC was the fourth regional institution established by regional countries soon after gaining political independence from Britain in the 1960s.
He said the regional leaders at the time “clearly understood the trials that would come from breaking with the past” and that the Council which was established in 1972, had been challenged with providing a cadre of Caribbean people, who would not only propel regional development but also able to stand proudly on the global stage.
He said the establishment of CXC was “more than an assertion of independence” and in the words of the late Jamaican Reggae icon, Bob Marley, was also intended “to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery”.
Prime Minister Stuart said that CXC, which when it began offered exams in five subject areas to 58,709 students in 1979 to now nearly 200,000 students in 35 subject areas, had been able to prove the naysayers wrong, many of whom had “doomed the Council to failure.
He said the CVC had to remain relevant in a changing global environment and that Barbados would continue to play a meaningful role, not only in CXC but in other regional organizations of the Caribbean Community.
He said CXC underscores ‘what our region can do and its achievements are simply outstanding.
“Along its 43 years it has earned the reputation of being more than an examination body and provider of certification. The institution has risen to the challenge of fostering regional cooperation and integration while contributing to the development of the people of the Caribbean”.
Stuart said that the expansion and modernization of the headquarters “must also be highlighted since it is a single achievement for both the government of Barbados and the Caribbean Examinations Council.
“All of agree that this new and much improved accommodation was long overdue,” he said, a statement echoed earlier by former CXC Registrar and now Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Dr. Didacus Jules who said “the building is not just a building”.
