Eighty percent of students who took this year's Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations have attained passing grades between grades one to five. CAPE, the Caribbean's equivalent of the traditional Advanced Level exam is widely being accepted as the benchmark by which school leavers will be judged for entry to university and into the world of work. It was introduced in 1998 by the Caribbean Examinations Council, 19 years after the introduction and success of the Ordinary Level equivalent the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate. CXC officials told BBC Caribbean Report that CAPE syllabuses have been approved by Cambridge University in England which administers the traditional A-Level and is widely accepted by both UK and North American universities. CAPE is different from the Cambridge exam, in that there are research components as well as internal assessments that are made throughout the student's sixth form years. Sister Theresa Vialva teaches Spanish, Communication Studies and Caribbean Studies at Holy Faith Convent, Couva in Central Trinidad. Holy Faith was one of the first schools in that country to embrace CAPE fully when it was introduced there last year. She believes that CAPE's compulsory research component has several advantages over the Cambridge examination. Caribbean-centric "It grounds them in their Caribbean reality. I think an important component of the CAPE programme is to force students to confront their environment and understand where they come from and where they are going to," she said. "So whatever the research component, whether it's in geography, physics or communication studies, it invites the child to do some research on something that’s happening in their own environment." Sister Theresa also thinks that by making the students embark on research and explore areas like questionnaire design, they will be more prepared for the challenges that come in tertiary education. At present, the exam is taken by students in 19 English-speaking countries across the region and figures show that this year, the number of students taking the exam, was up by 41 percent. A telling sign that the exam is gaining support is an increase in the number of private candidates signing up to take the exam. CXC officials recognise it will take some time for this relatively new exam to be fully accepted but with the intellectual rigour required and the Caribbean centric approach of the syllabus they are confident CAPE will prove to be a success. Reprinted from bbccaribbean.com