PoS schools release A’ Level results

Newsday was told by an official at Queen’s Royal College that they were told not to release the results before August 18 under the advice of the Ministry of Education. The advice to withhold the results until that day, was issued in a circular sent out earlier this month.

However, a ministry source insisted that there was no breach by the actions of officials of St Mary’s College and St Joseph’s Convent in Port-of-Spain, who chose to post the results on their schools’ notice boards. The source said the results were legitimately released, explaining that principals obtained the results via the Cambridge University Web site using a special code. The source said only principals were able to access the results.

Newsday understands that the ministry is expected to issue a new circular advising schools to issue the results whenever they receive it. The hard copy of the results is issued by Cambridge on August 18 to all students. Private candidates are expected to receive their results by August 30 at their home addresses.

However, parents who heard about the release of the results at the Port-of-Spain schools were demanding the same from other schools. They were upset, pointing out that their children were anxious. They felt all schools should have released the results on the same day.

Officials of schools in Central, South and along the East/West corridor were firm that the results would be made available on August 18. When Newsday visited St Mary’s College, one student was checking the results. We were told that few students knew of the posting of the results.

The ministry’s communications specialist Mervyn Critchlow was unavailable for comment.