Inexcusable

In a telephone interview, Doodhai said due diligence was not observed by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) with respect to the proofreading of the SE A examination paper. The CXC is the body charged with overseeing examinations for students in the Caribbean region for the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SE A); Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSE C) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exam (CAPE) examinations.

It is based in Barbados.

“If due diligence was observed then the errors that occurred on the examination paper would have been discovered and would have been able to be rectified.” One maths and two language arts questions in the SE A exam won’t be marked after Education Ministry officials noted errors in the three questions when the exam papers were collected after the exam ended.

He continued,, “The (Education) Minister and the CEO (Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan) would have indicated that the three questions would not be marked, however, I do not think that the issue is as simple as that.

Reports given to us from teachers said some students would have taken longer on those questions trying to ascertain what they were asking and in an attempt to answer them, precious time that could have been spent on the rest of the questions would have been lost.” Doodhai said he is quite sure there are children who may have gotten agitated or nervous as they could not arrive at an answer for these three questions that contained errors and/or omissions on the exam paper. He said the issue should not be dismissed so soon by the Ministry by merely saying the questions would not be marked.

“Obviously, it would have negative effects on some students.

TTUTA is of the view that it is grossly unfair to primary school students who after preparing so diligently for so many months, to have to come on the day of the exam and face this issue of errors in the exam paper,” a peeved Doodhai said.

He added that CXC needs to put, “their house in order”, to ensure such an issue never occurs again. Noting there was a similar issue in the 2013 SE A mathematics paper, where a question on the paper was not a topic approved in the syllabus. Doodhai said that four years later, students were faced with another problem.

In a telephone interview yesterday, a primary school teacher who asked not to be named said there was another error in the mathematics paper. The teacher said they were told to use guidelines from a table of specifications from 2007 and 2008. “When my children asked me about number 43 C in the maths paper, I told them we were told to teach about the 15 percent VAT based on the 2007 and 2008 guidelines, and now the government is saying 12.5 percent (VAT).

“The maths problem stated, ‘Mrs Brown paid VAT at 12.5 percent’.” The teacher continued, “This was a problem because we were supposed to teach 15 percent to the students and they brought something else for the students. Based on the information given to us through the ministry to use 15 percent, the exam brought a question on 12.5 percent and that was a big problem for some students.”