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.

In Trinidad and Tobago, elementary school students transition to secondary schools after writing the Secondary Entrance Examination (SEA), which determines which school they are placed at. Up to 2013, that examination comprised summative assessment in Mathematics, English Language Arts, and Composition. During the period 2013 to 2016, however, a continuous assessment component (CAC) was introduced, requiring amongst other things, that students produce a portfolio of written pieces.

Divergent discourses in education affecting social investment policies are driven by disparate perceptions of education as value, whether societal, individual, or by restructuring definitions of human capital beyond truncated utility measurements. In that context, powerful policy actors are making decisions based on their class cohort experience of what education should be, resulting in distinguishing evaluative properties that design education policy typologies to fit.

This paper discusses a small scale research study concerned with answering the research question: “What perceptions are held by students regarding networked learning and social media interactions?” This question was part of a wider research focal question: How do digital technologies and digital learning resources mediate Communities of Practice to support participation and learning?

The genesis of this study began with the understanding that there are many Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) public, government, and private schools and institutes in Jamaica at the secondary and tertiary education levels. At the time of this research, there was no specifically designed TVET principal/director preparation program or specialized qualifying credential.

The inclusion of papers from the Third International Conference on TVET in the Caribbean which was held during May 10-12, 2017 and embraced the theme “TVET for Sustainable Regional Development” is a testimony to the commitment of the University of the West Indies to the development of TVET at the tertiary level. In this issue of the Caribbean Journal of Education, four papers successfully met the targets established by the Journal for publication.

This double issue of the Caribbean Journal of Education offers a special section with papers from the Third International Conference on TVET in the Caribbean, held in May 2017. As Professor Halden Morris writes in his introduction to Section Two, the papers speak “to the importance of the development of TVET at the tertiary level and the preparation of the workforce to effectively engage the economic challenges faced by countries in the Caribbean and other developing regions as a whole.”

This qualitative study investigated the factors influencing the transition from teacher to principal, the challenges encountered, and the impact of mentorship and prior leadership experiences. A convenience sample of 20 newly appointed principals was interviewed. The factors which influenced smooth transitions included mentorship from former principals, previous leadership experience, and cooperative staff; while difficult transitions were blamed on poor school plant, strained interpersonal relations, and lack of buy-in for the principals’ vision.

School-based assessments (SBAs) were introduced to improve the validity and authenticity of public examinations across the globe. However, associated with this addition were issues related to teacher involvement, lack of effective material support, and student competence. There were also issues related to reliability and validity in SBAs which led to the conclusion that while reliability is a pre-condition for validity, it is also in tension with it.

An evaluation of the Dip. Ed. programme (2004-2009) using fourth generation methodology revealed the expectations, claims, concerns, and issues of stakeholders; including Ministry of Education (MOE) personnel and (School of Education) SOE staff, who were concerned that graduates of the programme reverted to practices employed before training. In response to that evaluation, this research investigates the current status of Dip. Ed. graduates’ practice.