By the end of the 19th century Trinidad had four single-sex secondary schools, the earliest of which, St. Joseph’s Convent (Port-of-Spain), was a Roman Catholic Girls’ school dating from 1836. The most recent foundation was Naparima College (c. 1900), a Canadian Presbyterian secondary school in southern Trinidad, chiefly for Indians. The two main secondary schools - Queens Royal College (hereafter QRC), and St. Mary’s College of the Immaculate Conception (hereafter CIC) -- were founded in 1859 and 1863 respectively.

The economic history of the West Indies since emancipation deals for the most part with the decline of the sugar industry, the efforts made to rehabilitate the industry, the relative success or failure of these efforts, and the attempts also to diversify the economy. Despite declining fortunes, the white minority retained political supremacy, and perhaps because of their uncertainty about their economic position they fought to maintain both political and social supremacy.

Since its establishment in 1972, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) has been providing improved access to education and certification for both in-school and out-of-school students in the Caribbean.  In order to optimize the benefits of its courses of study and examinations to out-of-school students, CXC had to treat with the challenge of the School-Based Assessment which must be undertaken under the guidance of the teacher and is therefore designed for in-school students.