Regional students grappling with suicidal thoughts following recent CXC results

 

Some regional students have reported they are grappling with suicidal thoughts and loss of scholarships following this year's CSEC and CAPE exams.

 

Following the release of the grades, there were complaints throughout the region about discrepancies.

 

Jamaica's education ministry was among several that wrote to CXC regarding the issue.

 

Speaking on Thursday at a Regional Stakeholder Press Conference to demand answers from CXC, Adela Scotland, an upper sixth form student at St. Francois Girl's School in Trinidad, said the discrepancies caused mental anguish among her peers. 

 

"I have had to take on the responsibility of comforting suicidal students across the region because they have reached out to me to express their confusion and this is something I fully understand... It is bizarre to me that despite the evident discrepancies and the constant complaints and the protests, that CXC has done nothing to assist the students of the region who are suffering from the terrible bouts of depression," she outlined.  

 

Khaleel Kothdiwala, Head Boy at Queens College in Barbados, said the discrepancies were damaging as some students had matriculated to universities but would have been removed from universities where they had been accepted conditionally based on the strength of their Unit 1 results. Others, he said, have been allowed to stay at universities but have lost scholarships they were offered.