On 11 May 2026, the Caribbean Examinations Council reaffirmed that Caribbean students could use AI tools while completing their school-based assessments. I wrote about that decision in this column at the time, and I called it one of the most consequential education policy signals the region had issued in a generation. Ten weeks later, on 16 and 17 July, CXC announced it was phasing out the take-home SBA entirely for most non-practical CSEC and CAPE subjects, replacing it with an invigilated exam called Paper 032.
Ten weeks is not a long runway for a full reversal of direction on a policy CXC itself had just reaffirmed. Something happened in that window to convince the council that disclosure and originality checks were not enough. What happened, most likely, is that CXC's markers spent May and June reading thousands of SBAs and could not reliably tell which ones reflected a student's own thinking and which ones did not. That is a real problem. Retreating from AI entirely is the wrong answer to it.
What Actually Changed
The May policy rested on three pillars: fairness, human judgment, and academic integrity. A student who used AI in developing an SBA had to run an originality check, submit that report alongside the coursework, and have a teacher complete a CXC AI Disclosure Form. AI detection software was not supposed to be the sole basis for evaluating a student's work. It was a permissive framework built around documentation rather than prohibition, and it treated AI as a feature of the environment students were already working in, not a threat to legislate away.
The July decision is narrower and blunter. Traditional take-home SBAs will be phased out for non-practical subjects, including Mathematics, English, Caribbean History, Social Studies, and Principles of Business. Practical subjects, Agricultural Science, Visual Arts, Music, Physical Education, Technical Drawing, and Food, Nutrition and Health, keep the SBA, with strengthened moderation, because they already require hands-on demonstration that is harder to fake. In place of the take-home coursework, non-practical candidates will sit Paper 032: an invigilated exercise where the topic is released about a month in advance, extended time is provided, and reference notes are allowed into the room, but the actual writing happens under supervision.
For CAPE, the transition to Paper 032 is mandatory from the May-June 2027 sitting. For CSEC, schools get a choice between the old SBA and Paper 032 in 2027, with the switch to Paper 032 becoming compulsory for the May-June 2028 examinations. CXC says the reform followed consultations across 21 Caribbean territories, which is not a decision made overnight, whatever the ten-week gap between the two announcements suggests about how quickly the council's confidence in the May framework collapsed.
The Core Argument
CXC's May policy tried to teach students to use AI honestly. Its July policy teaches them to sit an exam without it. The region's employers are not hiring for the second skill.
CXC's reform reaches CSEC and CAPE candidates across 21 territories, from Belize to Guyana, on a single decision made in Bridgetown.
Why CXC Made the Call
CXC Registrar and CEO Dr Wayne Wesley put the decision plainly: "CXC will always act in the best interest of the region, even when that requires difficult decisions." CXC Director of Operations Dr Nicole Manning framed the stakes in terms of what the qualification is for: "A CXC qualification means something. It means something to employers, to universities, to parents, families and guardians." Neither statement is unreasonable on its own terms. A regional examination body that cannot vouch for the authenticity of a coursework grade has a genuine credibility problem, and CXC's qualifications carry weight precisely because universities and employers have trusted them for decades.
The difficulty is what the fix actually optimises for. Paper 032 solves the verification problem by removing the conditions that made verification hard: take the work out of the home, put it in a supervised room, and the question of who really wrote it mostly disappears. That is a coherent response to an integrity crisis. It is a much weaker response to the question of what CXC's qualifications are supposed to certify a student can do, which is where Christopher Christie's critique lands hardest.
The Counter-Argument, From Someone Building AI Curricula
Christopher Christie, a doctoral candidate in artificial intelligence and chairman of JaceOnline.org, gave the Jamaica Gleaner a direct assessment of the reversal on 27 July: "The problem is not AI. The problem is that our method of assessment has not evolved quickly enough to accommodate AI." His sharper line cuts at the heart of what Paper 032 actually tests: "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."
Christie is not arguing CXC should ignore the integrity problem. He is arguing that detection and prohibition are the wrong tools for it: "The strongest protection is not detection software. It is assessment design." His proposed alternative, which he calls an AI-Transparent SBA, keeps the coursework format but restructures what a student has to submit. Students would declare which AI platform they used and how. They would submit the research notes, outlines, drafts, and teacher feedback that show how the work developed over time, not just the finished product. They would sit a short oral session, roughly five minutes, where a teacher questions them on the work to confirm genuine understanding. And they would complete a related, supervised classroom exercise a teacher could compare directly against the take-home submission. Under that model, using AI is not the violation. Concealing it is.
Christie's framing of equity is worth sitting with too: "Equity does not mean preventing every student from moving forward. It means ensuring that no student is left behind." A blanket move to invigilated exams treats every student as an equally likely offender, which is its own kind of unfairness to the majority who were using AI exactly the way the May policy invited them to.
The Workforce This Is Actually Preparing Students For
Christie's most direct challenge to CXC is generational: "We cannot prepare students for 2035 using an assessment philosophy designed for a world that no longer exists." The evidence for that claim does not require speculation about the future. It is visible in what employers are already asking for.
A 2026 study on employer expectations of AI-related graduates found that 53 percent of employers cited finding AI-ready graduates as their main hiring challenge, against 78 percent of higher-education leaders who believed their institutions were already meeting employer expectations, a gap that has nothing to do with the Caribbean specifically but describes exactly the mismatch CXC now risks widening. The Inter-American Development Bank has described the Caribbean labour market as being in a dual transition: traditional service roles remain the largest source of employment, while the fastest-growing segment sits in digital and AI-intensive occupations, with AI fluency expected to move from a rare advantage to a baseline expectation within a couple of years.
Set CXC's reversal against that backdrop and the sequencing looks wrong. CARICOM's Council for Trade and Economic Development formally endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap on 7 July 2026, nine days before CXC's SBA announcement. That roadmap rests on four pillars, Culture and Creativity, Governance and Transformation, Education and Upskilling, and Resiliency and Sustainability, built from consultations with more than 1,000 institutions and individuals across 20 territories. Education and Upskilling is not a minor line item in that document. It is one of four pillars the region's own AI strategy is built on. CXC's decision, made independently and in the same window, pulls the region's flagship secondary examination system in the opposite direction from its own regional AI roadmap.
The tools CXC is asking students to sit an exam without are the same tools CARICOM's own AI roadmap wants the region's workforce fluent in.
What Was Right in May, and What Still Is
I stand by what I wrote in May. CXC's original framework got the sequencing right: acknowledge that AI is already a reality in the operating environment of every Caribbean student, then build the documentation and disclosure infrastructure to make its use verifiable rather than invisible. Disclosure forms and originality checks are blunt instruments, and they clearly did not give CXC's markers enough confidence to hold the line through a single exam cycle. That is a real failure worth taking seriously. It is a failure of implementation detail, not of the underlying premise.
Christie's AI-Transparent SBA is a more rigorous version of the same premise, not a rejection of it. Process evidence, oral defence, and a supervised comparison exercise are all harder to fake than a disclosure checkbox, and all three ask more of a student than simply generating a clean document at home. That is a genuinely stronger integrity mechanism than the one CXC abandoned in July. It is also, unlike Paper 032, a mechanism that keeps students practising the skill regional employers are already screening for: working with AI tools, not around them.
What Should Happen Next
Christie has asked CXC to pause the wholesale removal of the take-home SBA and pilot the AI-Transparent model across selected CSEC and CAPE subjects before locking in Paper 032 for 2027 and 2028. That is the right ask, and the timeline gives CXC room to do it. CAPE's mandatory switch is still roughly nine months out. CSEC schools have a full optional year before the 2028 deadline. A pilot in two or three of the affected subjects, run alongside Paper 032 rather than instead of it, would tell CXC within one exam cycle whether declared, process-based AI use actually solves the verification problem the council is worried about, without giving up on the goal the May policy set out to achieve.
Caribbean students are not going to stop using AI because CXC moved their exams into a supervised room. They will simply stop practising how to use it well, at exactly the moment the region's employers, and the region's own AI roadmap, are asking for the opposite.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did CXC decide about AI and school-based assessments in July 2026?
On 16 and 17 July 2026, CXC announced it will phase out the traditional take-home SBA for most non-practical CSEC and CAPE subjects, including Mathematics, English, Caribbean History, Social Studies, and Principles of Business. Candidates will instead sit an invigilated exam called Paper 032. CXC cited concerns that generative AI was compromising the integrity of coursework submitted from home. Practical subjects such as Agricultural Science, Visual Arts, Music, Physical Education, Technical Drawing, and Food, Nutrition and Health keep the SBA, with strengthened moderation.
How does this compare to CXC's May 2026 AI policy?
On 11 May 2026, CXC reaffirmed that students could use AI tools in school-based assessments across CSEC, CAPE, and CCSLC, built on fairness, human judgment, and academic integrity, with an originality check and a teacher-completed AI Disclosure Form. Ten weeks later, CXC moved to remove the take-home SBA entirely for most non-practical subjects rather than refine that disclosure model.
When does the new Paper 032 exam take effect?
For CAPE, non-practical subjects move to Paper 032 beginning with the May-June 2027 examinations. For CSEC, schools can choose between the traditional SBA or Paper 032 in 2027, with full transition to Paper 032 mandatory for the May-June 2028 examinations. Candidates get their Paper 032 topic about a month in advance, extended time, and may bring reference notes into the room.
Why did CXC make this change?
CXC Registrar and CEO Dr Wayne Wesley said the council will always act in the region's best interest, even when that requires difficult decisions, and Director of Operations Dr Nicole Manning said a CXC qualification has to mean something to employers, universities, and families. The reform followed consultations across 21 Caribbean territories and reflects a judgment that take-home coursework can no longer be verified once generative AI is freely available.
What is Christopher Christie's AI-Transparent SBA proposal?
Christopher Christie, a doctoral candidate in artificial intelligence and chairman of JaceOnline.org, would have students declare which AI platform they used and how, submit research notes, drafts, and teacher feedback showing how the work evolved, defend it in a short oral session, and complete a related supervised classroom exercise a teacher can compare against the take-home submission. Using AI is not treated as misconduct under this model. Concealing it is.
What does this mean for Caribbean students preparing for the AI-driven job market?
A 2026 study found 53 percent of employers cite finding AI-ready graduates as their main hiring challenge. The Inter-American Development Bank describes the Caribbean labour market as being in a dual transition, where AI-intensive occupations are the fastest-growing segment and AI fluency is expected to become a baseline expectation within a couple of years. An exam system built entirely around supervised, AI-free performance risks preparing students for the opposite of what that market wants.
How does this fit with CARICOM's regional AI roadmap?
CARICOM's Council for Trade and Economic Development endorsed the UNESCO Caribbean AI Policy Roadmap on 7 July 2026, nine days before CXC's SBA announcement. The roadmap's four pillars include Education and Upskilling, built from consultations with more than 1,000 institutions across 20 territories. CXC's move away from AI in most coursework sits awkwardly next to a regional roadmap built around getting the workforce fluent in AI.
Is CXC scrapping SBAs for every subject?
No. CXC is retaining the SBA, with strengthened moderation, for practical subjects such as Agricultural Science, Visual Arts, Music, Physical Education, Technical Drawing, and Food, Nutrition and Health. The shift to invigilated Paper 032 applies to non-practical subjects where coursework can be produced entirely at home without supervision.
Further reading: my May column on CXC's original AI framework and where CARICOM's own AI roadmap stands on regional adoption. On the governance side of AI policy across the region, see the risk frameworks published by Caribbean AI Risk Management. On the AI training work I reference throughout, see StarApple AI.