An Open Letter to the Registrar and Council of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC)

Education shapes not only what Caribbean students know, but who they become.

Registrar and Esteemed Members of Council,

For more than four decades, the Caribbean Examinations Council has been one of the region’s most consequential institutions. Beyond certifying students, CXC has shaped curricula, classroom priorities, parental expectations, and — quietly but decisively — the values our societies reward.

It is precisely because of this influence that I write to you now.

Across the Caribbean, a troubling paradox has become increasingly evident. Educational participation and certification have expanded, yet social cohesion appears to be weakening. Public discourse has grown harsher. Youth alienation and violence unsettle many communities. Leadership, too often, is evaluated by assertion rather than by judgement, listening, or restraint.

These developments are not disconnected from education. They are, in part, educational outcomes.

What CXC already understands — and what the moment now demands

CXC understands a foundational truth of schooling better than most institutions:

What is examined becomes what is taught; what is taught becomes what is valued.

Teachers teach to the examination not out of cynicism, but out of responsibility. Parents and principals respond rationally to incentives embedded in syllabi and assessment frameworks. Ministries align policy accordingly. In such a system, competencies that fall outside formal assessment — however often they are praised rhetorically — are inevitably treated as secondary.

This is precisely the position in which the Caribbean now finds itself with respect to empathy, emotional literacy, and disciplined compassion.

We lament their erosion, yet we do not examine them.

A regional proposition: mCEL

Over the past two years, a growing body of Caribbean scholarship and commentary has converged around a demanding but necessary proposition: mCEL — mandatory Compassion and Emotional Learning — integrated into schooling as a core, assessed competency.

Mandatory, not optional.

Systemic, not symbolic.

mCEL is not therapy disguised as education. It is emotional literacy as civic infrastructure. Properly designed, it would require students to demonstrate the capacity to:

• recognise and regulate emotions in themselves and others,

• understand the emotional dimensions of conflict, power, and exclusion,

• practise ethical reasoning and restorative judgement,

• listen across difference in plural societies.

  
  

This does not dilute academic rigour. It completes it.

A region facing climate volatility, migration pressures, inequality, and small-state exposure cannot afford leadership that is cognitively sharp yet emotionally ill-equipped. Cleverness without care is proving brittle.

Why CXC must lead

If Compassion and Emotional Learning is left to individual schools or national ministries, it will fragment unevenly across the region. Well-resourced systems will adopt it quietly; others will struggle; comparability will erode; equity will suffer.

Only CXC possesses the regional authority to:

• convene a shared Caribbean standard for Compassion and Emotional Learning,

• integrate that standard coherently into syllabi and assessment blueprints,

• design age-appropriate, culturally grounded assessment instruments,

• signal unequivocally that emotional literacy is a regional educational expectation, not a discretionary add-on.

  
  

In short, only CXC can move compassion from aspiration to architecture.

A prudent and practical pathway

This letter does not urge precipitous implementation. It urges deliberate initiation:

1. The establishment of a CXC-led regional task force on Compassion and Emotional Learning, drawing on educators, psychologists, ethicists, and classroom practitioners.

2. Pilot integration at primary and lower-secondary levels, where emotional formation is most developmentally responsive.

3. Assessment design that privileges reflection, reasoning, and applied judgement over moral recitation.

4. Teacher professional development, recognising that emotional literacy must be modelled, not merely taught.

5. Transparent regional consultation, ensuring cultural sensitivity while maintaining shared standards.

These steps lie squarely within CXC’s convening capacity and technical competence.

A moment of institutional choice

CXC has long been one of the Caribbean’s most successful integration projects. At this juncture, it has an opportunity to extend that legacy — by helping the region align intellectual excellence with humane judgement.

The Caribbean has never lacked intelligence. What it increasingly lacks is the disciplined empathy required to hold intelligence together in service of the common good.

Education systems do not fail only when they neglect knowledge. They fail when they forget what knowledge is for.

As ancient wisdom quietly reminds us, without vision a people perish.CXC now has an opportunity to help ensure that the Caribbean’s educational vision remains not only clever — but humane.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration,

Dennis A. Minott, PhD

Port Antonio, 

JAMAICA

January 14, 2026