CXC moves to phase out School-Based Assessments to combat AI

The reforms draw a clear line between practical and non-practical subjects in how students will be assessed from 2027.

• Traditional SBAs will be phased out in non-practical subjects including Mathematics, English, Caribbean History, Social Studies, Principles of Business, and Information Technology; SBAs will be retained and moderation strengthened for practical subjects such as Agricultural Science, Visual Arts, Music, Physical Education, Technical Drawing, and Food, Nutrition and Health.
• In place of the traditional take-home SBA for non-practical subjects, students will sit Paper 032 — an existing alternative assessment reconfigured under supervised examination conditions, with three key adjustments: topics given approximately one month in advance, additional time to complete the paper, and permission to bring reference notes into the exam room.
• CAPE candidates will transition fully to Paper 032 beginning with the May–June 2027 examinations; CSEC schools will have the option to choose between the traditional SBA and Paper 032 in 2027, with a full mandatory transition to Paper 032 scheduled for the May–June 2028 sitting.
• Existing SBA scores remain transferable under CXC's established two-year rule; from 2027, Paper 032 scores will carry the same transferability.
• CXC has published Standards and Guidelines for the Use of AI in Assessments (April 2025) and a Responsible Generative AI Policy Framework (November 2024), classifying AI use into four levels and requiring a Disclosure Form and Originality Report where AI is used in SBA work.
• CXC CEO Dr Wayne Wesley announced a five-year strategic plan at the 4th Ministerial Summit to transform CXC into a 'digitally transformed enterprise', describing AI as a tool to personalise learning — signalling the reforms sit within a broader institutional transformation, not a rejection of AI.

Students across the region sitting non-practical CAPE subjects will face the new Paper 032 model as early as May–June 2027, with CSEC students following under a mandatory framework the year after. 

Teachers will absorb a significantly expanded interpretive burden: educators are expected to assess originality reports, review writing development across drafts, and exercise human judgement where AI detection flags arise — all without equivalent adjustments to workload, resourcing or compensation structures being announced. 

Critics warn this burden will fall unevenly across the region, with well-resourced schools better positioned to implement consistent AI-related review than under-resourced institutions. For students from disadvantaged backgrounds, unequal access to approved AI platforms and digital infrastructure risks widening the existing gap in educational outcomes. 

Caribbean universities and employers — who rely on CXC credentials as a benchmark — will be watching whether the reformed Paper 032 sustains the credibility that the SBA can no longer reliably guarantee.

What to watch: • Whether CSEC schools opt into Paper 032 voluntarily in 2027 before the mandatory 2028 deadline — uptake rates will signal regional readiness. • CXC's response to ongoing calls from AI expert Christopher Christie and others to pilot an 'AI-Transparent SBA' before permanently abolishing coursework in non-practical subjects. • Whether Caribbean governments enact national AI-in-education legislation, given nearly 70% of CXC member states lack a formal AI policy in education.

CXC: Reform is a necessary defence of credential integrity, not a rejection of AI as a learning tool. Wesley insists the integrity of CXC qualifications is non-negotiable, and that when an assessment system can no longer reliably measure a student's own work, the organisation has an obligation to act decisively. CXC maintains it supports responsible AI use in learning — but not in unmonitored coursework.

Christie: The reform treats the symptom, not the cause — assessment design must evolve to accommodate AI, not exclude it. Christie says the problem is not AI itself, but the pace at which assessment methods are changing. He proposes an 'AI-Transparent SBA' requiring students to declare AI use, submit drafts and research notes, and undergo an oral defence — arguing this would better detect dishonesty than removing coursework altogether, while teaching the AI literacy students will need in the workforce.

Dr Zhane Bridgeman-Maxwell, science educator: CXC's framework raises unanswered equity and consistency questions that cannot be resolved by detection tools or human judgement alone. Bridgeman-Maxwell warns that shifting interpretive responsibility to teachers — without standardising AI detection tools, addressing unequal school resources, or revisiting teacher workload — risks producing inconsistent outcomes across the region and potentially disadvantaging students in under-resourced institutions.

"Placing students in more examination rooms, under more controlled conditions, will not prepare them for the world they are entering. In the real world, our young people will work with artificial intelligence, automation, digital research tools and intelligent systems."

— Christopher Christie, AI expert, via Jamaica Gleaner