Regional examination body, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), says the number of candidates who were absent for the sitting of the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency (CAPE) Examination and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams remains a cause for concern.

Dr Nicole Manning, director of operations at CXC, who was speaking at the official release ceremony for the May/June examination results on Thursday, August 24, held in St Kitts and Nevis ,said that while there has been an improvement in candidate absenteeism, there is still a cause for concern.

“Unfortunately, as we look at the candidate absenteeism, we look at it with a little disappointment because as we see a reduction, there is still a need for concern as educators where as much as for CAPE, 9, 974 candidates [were] absent from exams. These are candidates who would have been registered for examinations and would not have turned up. You will imagine that these candidates are ungraded, it is not something CXC wants to see and we are 100 per cent sure it’s not something the ministry’s education or principals, teachers and definitely not parents want to see,” she said.

Last year, a total of 13,910 candidates were absent from the CAPE exams.

Similarly, there was a reduction in the number of candidates who did not show up for their exams, moving from 103,780 recorded the previous year to 71,548 candidates.