An­na-Lisa Paul

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has de­scribed the on­go­ing con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing the two top-per­form­ing 2020 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) stu­dents as an un­healthy and un­nec­es­sary de­vel­op­ment stem­ming from the unau­tho­rised ac­tion of a se­nior min­istry of­fi­cial.

And while there has been no clear con­fir­ma­tion that the SEA awards for top-per­form­ing stu­dents will be scrapped go­ing for­ward, the min­is­ter yes­ter­day al­lud­ed to changes as the cur­rent sys­tem has out­lived its use­ful­ness.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment on Fri­day she said, “The de­ci­sion go­ing for­ward would very like­ly be to let stu­dents con­cen­trate on get­ting in­to their school of choice, with­out the ad­di­tion­al stress of think­ing about where they came in the rank­ing and recog­ni­tion.”

The mat­ter first arose in 2020, when the par­ents of a male stu­dent queried his re­sults af­ter it was re­leased on Oc­to­ber 8, 2020. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion lat­er ac­knowl­edged the boy had scored the high­est in the coun­try in the SEA ex­am.

The re­view to be done by the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) was re­port­ed­ly re­quest­ed on the ba­sis that the boy had been scor­ing con­sis­tent­ly high marks at school.

CXC is the body re­spon­si­ble for com­pil­ing and mark­ing the SEA ex­am.

The re­view re­vealed the boy scored full marks in the es­say writ­ing com­po­nent, which moved from 18 to 20, al­though his orig­i­nal re­sults showed a low­er score.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the pri­ma­ry pur­pose of the SEA ex­am was to de­ter­mine the place­ment of a stu­dent at sec­ondary school and those at­tain­ing a first choice place­ment do not usu­al­ly query their marks.

Ex­plain­ing why a re­view is nor­mal­ly ini­ti­at­ed, she said, “The re­view process, where the ex­am­i­na­tion pa­per is re­viewed by the Chief Ex­am­in­er ap­point­ed by CXC…that is pri­mar­i­ly for stu­dents who did not achieve their goal, which is the school of their choice.”

Once the marks are al­tered up­wards, the stu­dent would be ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the school of their choice and as the min­is­ter stressed, “No one is tak­en out of the school to put that stu­dent in. They are ac­com­mo­dat­ed.”

With ap­prox­i­mate­ly 19,000-odd stu­dents writ­ing the SEA ex­am each year, Gads­by-Dol­ly said year­ly re­views usu­al­ly num­ber around 400 and of this num­ber, 30 to 40 stu­dents usu­al­ly walk away with a change in their sec­ondary school place­ment.

“This was the first time that we had a sit­u­a­tion where stu­dents who were in the top tier of the SEA would have done re­views, re­sult­ing in this kind of sit­u­a­tion,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

While the mat­ter was ini­tial­ly ad­dressed in 2020 when it arose, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “To pull that back would have been very dam­ag­ing, as it is now, in this whole glare to those stu­dents and so the de­ci­sion was tak­en that we would stand on the prin­ci­ple of the pre­lim­i­nary re­sults, as it had hap­pened for all of these years. That has been the prece­dent and that is where we stood.”

The min­is­ter was clear as she added, “What has caused this to arise is the unau­tho­rised ac­tion of a se­nior of­fi­cial of the min­istry, who, with­out ask­ing ap­proval, iden­ti­fied a change on that list­ing on the ba­sis of re­viewed re­sults. This was against the po­si­tion tak­en back in 2020.”

Say­ing sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions had oc­curred with oth­er stu­dents in 2020 and 2021, she added, “That is why it was so im­por­tant for us to make a de­ci­sion and stand on the prin­ci­ple of what had been the prece­dent for all these years.”

She added, “One unau­tho­rised ac­tion has thrown this whole thing in­to a very, very neg­a­tive light.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly again ex­tend­ed heart­felt apolo­gies to both stu­dents, say­ing, “That girl who was placed first based on pre­lim­i­nary re­sults…was placed first based on the prece­dent that all oth­er years had fol­lowed and so it is un­for­tu­nate that her achieve­ment is now be­ing ques­tioned, and while we cel­e­brate the achieve­ment of the young man, he was al­so in the top tier.”

Ques­tion­ing what val­ue would be added to the lives of both stu­dents who had al­ready se­cured places at their first-choice sec­ondary schools, the min­is­ter stressed, “At the top tier, it is not a ma­jor gap. It is small marks that sep­a­rate the stu­dents and that is why this is so patent­ly un­healthy.”

Asked if dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion would be tak­en against the of­fi­cial who com­mit­ted the breach, she re­spond­ed, “There are op­tions avail­able to me and I will be pur­su­ing it.”

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