Take another look at SEA Creative Writing

THE EDITOR: The Creative Writing component of the SEA Exam 2006 is taught analytically in the classroom but will be “holistically” scored by The Ministry of Education with “in-tangible” criteria such as, quote: “reader/audience appeal.” In this case, the reader/audience are the adjudicators. Holistic scoring is impressionistic, produces biased results and the adjudicators are unaccountable to anyone. Analytical scoring is based on “tangible criteria” such as, the number of goals scored in the World Cup 2006 Finals, inclusive of penalty kicks.

Suppose the 2006 World Cup finalists, The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago vs Germany, were faced with a change of rules. In this case, the adjudicators being the only persons to know where the goalposts are, and when a goal scores, and were also blatantly unaccountable to anyone and the referee and linesmen were German. Comparing the parallel reality of SEA 2006 to this, the Ministry of Education should dispose of this scheme of discrimination and replace it with something more acceptable before SEA 2006.

DAN MATTHEWS
St James