Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

All the stu­dents liv­ing in flood-hit ar­eas of south Trinidad sched­uled to sit CXC ex­am­i­na­tions on Mon­day were not able to make it to an ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tre and prin­ci­pals have been asked to sub­mit in­for­ma­tion on such stu­dents to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, which will then make rep­re­sen­ta­tion to CXC for com­pas­sion­ate con­sid­er­a­tion on be­half of those stu­dents.

Min­is­ter in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian gave this in­for­ma­tion in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing a query from UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark about wide­spread flood­ing in the Bar­rack­pore and Moru­ga com­mu­ni­ties which caused some stu­dents to miss their CSEC and CAPE ex­ams.

Mark want­ed to know what mea­sures were be­ing tak­en to en­sure the stu­dents are not dis­ad­van­taged.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian said, “In light of the in­clement weath­er ex­pe­ri­enced on Mon­day, 12th June, 2023, and the flood­ing which en­sued, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion made arrange­ments to fa­cil­i­tate stu­dents who had dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting to their cen­tres to sit the CXC ex­am­i­na­tion. These mat­ters were han­dled on a school-by-school, and in some cas­es, a stu­dent-by-stu­dent ba­sis, as the need arose.

“How­ev­er, de­spite their best ef­forts, all stu­dents sched­uled to sit CXC ex­am­i­na­tions yes­ter­day (Mon­day) were not able to make it to an ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tre.”

The min­istry al­so made arrange­ments for stu­dents af­fect­ed by the in­clement weath­er to write the ex­ams at cen­tres not af­fect­ed by flood­ing.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian not­ed, “The Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) does not sched­ule make-up ex­am­i­na­tions, so in cas­es like these, which have oc­curred pre­vi­ous­ly, the min­istry col­lects ver­i­fied, stu­dent-spe­cif­ic da­ta from schools, and makes rep­re­sen­ta­tion to CXC for com­pas­sion­ate con­sid­er­a­tion on be­half of the stu­dents who were not able to sit their ex­am­i­na­tions. This has re­sult­ed, in pre­vi­ous years, in a pro-rat­ed ex­am­i­na­tion grade, based on their per­for­mance in the ex­am­i­na­tion pa­pers they would have been able to sit, and their SBA grade.”

Mor­ris-Ju­lian said prin­ci­pals were asked to send in the in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the stu­dents who missed ex­am­i­na­tions due to flood­ing on Mon­day.

“This is present­ly be­ing re­ceived and col­lat­ed by the min­istry for our sub­mis­sion to CXC. Par­ents of stu­dents so af­fect­ed are ad­vised to li­aise with school prin­ci­pals to en­sure that their chil­dren are on the list that is sub­mit­ted to CXC and the min­istry,” she said.

On oth­er ques­tions from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Paul Richards, the Min­is­ter al­so said the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee had com­plet­ed its re­view of the changes to the con­duct of the SEA and tran­si­tion to sec­ondary school and the Con­cor­dat.

On Feb­ru­ary 8, 2022, the for­mer Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate had ad­vised that the com­mit­tee es­tab­lished to fur­ther re­view and rec­om­mend changes to these mat­ters was sched­uled to re­port to Cab­i­net in Au­gust 2022.

Mor­ris-Julien, giv­ing an up­date, said the com­mit­tee’s re­port is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Cab­i­net for its con­sid­er­a­tion and re­view.

“The de­ci­sion of the Cab­i­net will be made pub­lic in due course,” Mor­ris-Ju­lian said.

She said the re­port will be made pub­lic once Cab­i­net com­pletes its de­lib­er­a­tions, but she couldn’t give a dead­line on such a “weighty” mat­ter.

“But it’s re­ceiv­ing Cab­i­net’s at­ten­tion and will be avail­able in due course,” she added.